XNf^ 


- 


NINETY    DAYS'    WORTH 


EUROPE. 


BY    EDWARD    E.     HALE. 


'Ha!   they  are  gone!  " 

"  Yet  feel  you  no  delight 
From  the  past  sweetness?" 


BOSTON: 
WALKER,   WISE,   AND   COMPANY, 

245,  WASHINGTON  STREET. 

1861. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1860, 
BY   WALKER,  WISE,   AND    CO. 

C     I      '  I  o  1  k.     •        «.  4        t  • 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  Abe  District  Courtiofttlie  District  of  Massachusetts. 


BOSTON : 
PRINTED    BY   JOHN    WILSON   AND    SON, 

22,  SCHOOL  STREET. 


NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OP  EUROPE. 


T  AM  to  say,  in  a  prefatory  note  to  this  work,  that  I 
-I-  have  as  great  a  contempt  for  books  of  travel  as 
I  ever  had,  and  quite  as  much  for  this  book  as  I  have 
for  any  of  the  class. 

I  have  also  to  say  to  the  public,  that  I  have  no  wish 
that  they  should  buy  it,  take  it  out  of  Loring's  Library 
at  two  cents  a  day,  or  out  of  the  City  Library  for 
nothing.  Still  less  do  I  advise  them  to  read  a  word  in 
it,  by  any  accident  whatever. 

But  I  find,  that  in  six  months,  since  I  returned  from 
a  very  happy  little  dash  across  Europe,  I  have  had  con- 
stant occasion  to  lend  to  friends  the  letters  which  I  sent 
home,  or  the  note-books  and  scrap-books  which  I  brought 
home.  I  am  also  constantly  referring  to  them  myself  for 
the  chastening  of  the  imaginative  side  of  my  memory, 
and  the  stimulating  of  its  drowsy  side.  It  will  be  much 
more  convenient  to  recur  to  these  memorials  in  print 
than  in  their  original  manuscript ;  and  for  this  private 
and  personal  purpose,  here  on  a  New-Hampshire  hill- 
side, at  too  high  a  level  to  be  hot,  and  too  far  from  men 
to  be  interrupted,  on  this  lovely  July  day,  I  begin  the 
arrangement  for  the  press  of  these  pages."] 

They  are  dedicated  to  that  circle  of  friends  who  would 
have  been  glad  to  look  over  them  in  manuscript. 

1 


v  « 

''*  WORTH    OF    EUROPE. 


I  spare  myself,  therefore,  the  pains  of  adding  notes  to 
explain  personal  or  domestic  allusions  which  most  of 
these  friends  will  understand.  As  the  Dervise  Nasr- 
Eddin  said,  those  who  do  not  understand  can  ask  those 
who  do.  I  omit  all  apology  again  for  the  extreme  crude- 
ness  of  the  whole,  and  the  errors  which  I  do  not  doubt  are 
on  every  page.  I  have  no  books  of  reference  here  on  the 
Slope  of  Passaconaway  ;  and  as  we  say  in  sermons  and 
in  the  "  Examiner,"  when  we  come  to  a  hard  place,  "  it 
would  not  be  in  my  present  plan  "  to  use  them  if  I  had.* 
There  is  no  pretence,  in  the  materials  that  I  bring  to- 
gether, that  I  understand  the  phenomena  that  I  describe, 
or  that  I  have  studied  them  with  care.  The  home-friends 
for  whom  I  wrote  knew  perfectly  well  that  I  had  had  no 
opportunity  to  do  either. 

This  little  book,  therefore,  is  not  a  study  of  European 
civilization  or  barbarism  ;  nor  is  it  a  study  of  any  of  the 
elements  of  either,  —  of  European  education,  govern- 
ment, art,  or  society.  It  is  rather  an  extract  -book, 
made  up  from  parts  of  a  mass  of  the  most  hasty  notes, 
which  show  how  much  enjoyment  I  found  in  my  NINETY 
DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

Some  suggestions  on  the  religion  of  Europe,  as  it 
shows  itself  in  its  public  religious  services,  which  seemed 
to  me  worth  writing  home,  have  been  published  in  the 
"  Christian  Register"  much  more  widely  than  they  would 
be  published  here.  With  one  or  two  exceptions,  there- 
fore, I  do  not  repeat  them  now. 

*  I  have  since  found  the  same  remark  in  Tacitus. 


TO  AND  FROM  ENGLAND. 


STEAMSHIP  "EUROPA,"  HALIFAX  HARBOR, 
12.15  (Boston  time), 

Friday  noon,  Sept.  23, 1859. 

'  FTER  a  long  run,  we  are  coming 
in  to  see  the  captain  (Smith, 
of  the   forty -third  Irregulars, 
whose  behavior  was  worthy  of 
such  a  corps).     We  have  had 
a  rough  passage,  which  I  shall 
thus  describe  in  my  telegram  : 
"  All  well ;    sea  rough  ;   ship  steady  ;  passengers 
pleasant;    and  I,  always  yours." 


4  NINETY    DAYS     WORTH    OF    EUROPE. 

There  has  been  no  period  till  now  when  we  have 
had  a  smooth  enough  sea  for  me  to  write  even  thus 
ill.  IBut  really  our  detail  has  been  little.  It  is  just 
possible  that  a  schooner  may  have  announced  that  she 
spoke  us  Wednesday  night.  If  she  arrives  at  Boston, 
it  will  not  be  that  she  has  not  been  sent  to  a  hotter 
place  by  everybody  who  has  alluded  to  her  in  our 
party  (excepting  me,  who  sympathize  with  her  skip- 
per, and  am  afraid  I  should  have  done  just  what  he 
did).  The  skipper  thought  he  was  going  to  be  run 
down,  and  fired  two  guns.  This  he  should  never 
have  done,  unless  he  were  in  distress ;  but,  as  he  did 
it,  gallant  Capt.  Leitch  in  all  that  stiff  gale  lay  by, 
and  sent  a  boat  on  board  him,  only  to  learn  that  his 
distress  rose  from  his  fears  that  he  did  not  see  him. 
So,  as  far  as  I  can  learn,  he  got  quite  distinctly  con- 
demned for  his  pains  ;  and  we  proceeded  again  to 
our  business  of  getting  to  Europe.  By  rigid  con- 
tinuance in  it,  we  were  able  to  take  a  pilot  this  morn- 
ing :  a  very  pretty  and  exciting  sight,  —  two  pilot 
schooners  vying  for  our  custom,  and  the  successful 
Bluenose  having  to  pull  a  mile  in  his  fine  little 
dory  over  such  waves  as  you  never  saw.  By  the 
time  he  reached  us,  his  nose  was  as  red  as  a  peach- 
blow. 

Meanwhile,  whenever  and  wherever  we  saw  break- 
ers, knowing  passengers  nodded,  and  said  "  Sambro 
Head ;  "  though,  when  the  pilot  arrived,  it  appeared, 
as  I  had  guessed,  that  none  of  the  officers  knew 


TO    AND    FROM    ENGLAND.  5 

within  ten  miles  where  we  were  in  this  fog,  if  indeed 
the  pilot  himself  did.  As  no  intercourse  is  allowed 
between  the  passengers  and  the  officers  on  duty,  we 
were  not  able  to  communicate  to  them  our  intuitive 
information.  Where  I  am  writing,  I  can  see  no 
more  of  Halifax  than  you  can ;  but  I  believe  we  are 
just  at  the  pier. 

STEAMER  "  EUROPA,"  Sunday,  Oct.  2, 1859. 

We  rose  early,  to  be  sure  to  see  the  Giant's  Cause- 
way. We  are  to  arrive  in  Liverpool  to-night  if  all 
works  well.  We  were  not  disappointed  about  the 
Causeway,  though  hardly  near  enough  to  it.  It  was 
curiously  like,  in  some  of  its  effects,  my  sailing  by 
the  Pictured  Rocks  of  Lake  Superior  three  months 
since ;  and  I  recognized  the  little  island  pillar,  which 


you  will  remember  we  saw  in  Mr.  Waterston's  capital 
drawings.  For  any  detail,  however,  we  were  quite 
too  far  off;  and  the  Giant's  Causeway  will  remain  in 
my  memory  rather  as  a  series  of  receding  cliffs,  each 
like  that  in  the  geography-pictures,  than  with  any 


NINETY    DAYS'  WORTH    OF    EUROPE. 


,,l  " 

such  specific  aspect  as  we  saw  in  that  portfolio.  Soon 
after,  we  doubled  the  north-east  cape  of  Ireland,  — 
Fair  Head ;  which  we  came  close  to,  and  which  had, 
therefore,  for  us  a  much  finer  appearance,  —  an  im- 
mense basaltic  cliff  like  the  Palisades,  and  the  country 
each  side  much  like  the  Highlands  of  the  Hudson. 
You  may  imagine  how  pretty  cottages,  churches,  and 
fields  looked  after  our  imprisonment.  I  had  on  my 
knees  a  pretty  little  pet  about  four  years  old,  daughter 
of  a  naval  officer  on  board.  She  asked  me  to  show 
her  Scotland.  I  lifted  her  up,  and  pointed  out  the 
Mull  of  Cantire,  which  was  hazy  in  the  east.  It  was, 
as  it  proved,  the  first  sight  the  little  thing  had  ever 
had  of  her  own  land.  The  little  blue-eyed,  flaxen 
ringleted,  Scottish  lassie  was  born  in  Malta,  and  has 
been  ever  since  at  different  English  naval  stations, 
away  from  what  she  will  always  call  home,  with  her 
father  and  mother,  who  are  now  returning  with  us. 

We  kept  very  close  to  the  Irish  shore  till  we  passed 
the  lough  which  makes  the  Harbor  of  Belfast ;  having 
by  the  way,  before  this,  passed  the  Lough  Foyle, 
where  the  horrible  Londonderry  battles  (in  Macaulay) 
were  fought.  We  then  began  to  cross  toward  the 
other  side.  The  rain  and  fog  began  to  gather.  It 


TO    AND    FROM    ENGLAND.  7 

came  time  for  service,  which  I  read  again.  After 
service,  it  was  still  rainy ;  and  so  our  acquaintance 
with  the  new  continent  (if  these  islands  be  a  part  of 
the  continent)  ended  almost  as  soon  as  it  began. 

Last  night,  we  had  a  perfectly  magnificent  aurora, 
beginning  as  soon  as  it  was  dark,  and  lasting  so  near 
midnight,  that  I  could  not  but  hope  you  saw  it 
also :  for  you  know  ours  of  Aug.  28  was  seen  at 
Rome  ;  the  first,  save  Guide's,  ever  seen  there.  Fans- 
turn  sit  omen.  Although  this  did  not,  form  a  com- 
plete canopy,  it  did  curtain  the  whole  northern 
hemisphere,  and  passed  far  over;  seeming,  indeed, 
most  knot-like  at  the  zenith.  As  I  lay  on  my  back 
on  the  deck,  looking  right  up,  it  seemed  at  one 
time  most  like  one  of  those  large  fan-tailed  comets 
figured  in  the  astronomy-books;  only  the  nucleus 
was  in  the  zenith,  and  the  fan  swept  half  the  hori- 
zon. The  colors  were  very  rich  and  deep.  After- 
wards there  were  the  most  weird  dances  of  the 
spirits,  — 

"  Quiescent,  quivering,  quickly,  quaintly,  queer,"  — 

as  they  are  described  in  an  alliterative  alphabetic 
poem,  on  the  model  of  "  An  Austrian  Army,"  which 
five  of  us  invented  while  we  waited  for  more.  All 
the  rest  of  it  which  I  remember  are  the  first  lines,  — 

"  Awake,  Aurora !  and  above  all  airs 
By  brilliant  blazon  bully  boreal  bears."  * 

*  But  the  whole  of  the  stuff  got  printed  in  "  Notes  and  Queries." 


NINETY   DAYS    WORTH    OF    EUROPE. 


ENGLAND. 

I  think  it  is  Dr.  Bellows  who  says  in  an  article 
on  travel,  in  the  "  North  American/'  that  the  first 
twenty-four  hours  has  a  smack  or  tang  in  it,  which 
nothing  afterwards  compares  with.  This  is  perfectly 
true ;  and  this  is  to  be  added,  —  which  indeed,  per- 
haps, he  adds  (for  I  quote  at  second-hand),  —  that  this 
first  impression  is  a  blush  on  the  grape,  a  bloom  on 
the  peach,  which  it  is  very  difficult  to  recover  even 
in  memory.  My  first  sight  of  an  English  hamlet  in 
Staffordshire,  its  droll  squeezing  together  of  half  a 
dozen  brick  houses  as  close  as  if  they  were  in  North 
Street  in  Boston,  while  all  around  there  was  plenty 
of  room ;  my  first  sight  of  ivy  growing  perfectly  free 
and  wild ;  my  first  sight  of  holly-trees  as  large  as 
apple-trees ;  my  first  sight  of  a  lark  in  the  sky ;  my 
first  sight  of  heather  in  bloom;  my  first  "heclger 
and  ditcher ; "  my  first  sight  of  the  brick  walls  of 
a  garden  in  the  country ;  my  first  sight  of  the  inte- 
rior of  an  English  church ;  my  first  crusader-lying- 
in  -  stone  -  on  -  his  -back  -  on  -  his  -  tombstone  ;  my  first 
every  thing,  in  short,  - —  excited  me,  electrified  me, 
brought  the  tears  to  my  eyes  very  likely,  in  a  way 
which,  two  or  three  months  after,  I  found  it  impos- 
sible to  make  real.  I  think  it  all  comes  back  to 
me  more,  as  I  write  these  words  in  the  wholly  differ- 


ENGLAND.  9 

ent  world  of  the  New-Hampshire  mountains,  than  it 
did  after  a  few  weeks  of  familiarity  with  England. 
After  the  first  plunge,  one  is  accustomed  to  the  new 
dimensions.  St.  George's  Hall,  in  Liverpool,  seemed 
large  to  me ;  and  the  parish  Church  of  St.  Mary's, 
in  Stafford,  the  first  church  I  entered  in  England ;  St. 
Paul's,  in  London,  my  first  cathedral ;  and  the  Ant- 
werp Cathedral,  a  few  days  after.  But,  in  an  instant 
almost,  one  adapts  himself  to  the  scale.  He  feels  at 
home  in  the  grandest  of  these  buildings ;  and  even 
in  the  cathedrals,  for  instance,  feels  that  they  are 
none  too  grand.  He  begins  at  once  to  compare 
them,  not  with  his  own  church  at  home,  but  with 
each  other.  And  so,  as  Dr.  Bellows  says,  it  is  only 
the  first  of  a  class  of  impressions  which  does  for  us 
what  we  fancy  travelling  will  do  all  the  time.  As 
soon  as  we  get  our  first  charge  of  European  electri- 
city, the  conductor  gives  us  no  bigger  sparks  than  it 
gives  to  other  people. 

Liverpool  profits  in  my  memories  by  this  principle. 
I  wonder  that  people  hurry  through  it ;  I  wonder 
that  it  ever  gets  disrespectfully  spoken  of,  as  if  there 
were  nothing  to  see.  I  suppose  there 
are  not  many  lions ;  but  there  are  — 
what  are  as  good  as  lions  —  shrimps, 
Spanish  grapes,  beggars  playing  at 
coach  -  wheel,  red  -  coated  post  -  boys, 
police  -  men  with  shiny  hats,  and,  in 
short,  all  that  world  of  details,  which 


10 


NINETY    DAYS     WORTH    OF    EUROPE. 


are  all  new  as  one  lands,  as  if  they  were  lions, — 
newer,  indeed,  because  they  are  never  shown  in 
menageries  ;  and  which,  after  a  week  in  England, 
one  sees  no  more  than  the  native  does,  because  he 
has  seen  them  all  the  week,  and  forgets  to  notice 
them. 

"  Punch  "  represents  the  every-day  side  of  life  so 
faithfully,  that  one  constantly  cries  at  first,  "  How 
like  '  Punch ' !  "  as  he  sees  a  cab  of  a  pattern  he 
never  saw  before,  a  beggar  in  a  rig  unknown  to 
him  outside  of  "  Punch,"  or  a  crossing- sweeper  hold- 
ing his  hand  for  a  penny.  I  remember  also,  that,  as 
soon  as  we  went  into  the  country,  we  were  constantly 
saying,  "  How  like  the  theatre  !  "  For  at  home  we 
had  never  seen  high  brick  walls  and  garden-gates  in 
the  midst  of  the  country,  except  as  they  were  neces- 
sary for  the  machinery  of  an  English  play ;  nor  little 
way- side  inns,  —  not  big  enough  for  anybody  to  sleep 
in,  you  would  say,  —  with  a  sign  stuck  out  from  the 

house,  indicating  that  the 
Royal  Oak  was  remem- 
bered there.  So  much, 
indeed,  of  the  drama  takes 
English  dress,  that  I  do 
not  think  I  was  rid  of  this 
association  with  the  play 
,till  I  was  again  enjoying 
family  life.  The  interiors  in  England,  as  I  saw  them, 
home-life  in  what  they  call  the  middle  class,  or  in  the 


ENGLAND.  11 

educated  classes,  seemed  to  me  precisely  like  our 
life  at  home,  except  in  a  few  of  the  most  trivial 
details. 

Of  that  interior  life,  these  pages  will,  of  course, 
say  nothing  more ;  and  therefore,  of  a  fortnight 
spent  in  England  after  the  arrival  described  above, 
my  book  will,  I  must  own,  tell  very  little.  For,  to 
be  philosophical  and  sentimental  at  once,  very  little 
ever  gets  written  down  about  home.  On  the  other 
hand,  a  crowded  London  hotel,  or  a  midnight  ride 
in  an  express-train,  which  one  might  describe  if  he 
chose,  do  not  fill  any  great  comparative  place  in  his 
English  recollections  ;  and  that  happens,  therefore, 
even  in  constructing  the  frailest  book  of  "travels," 
which  happens  so  often  in  the  gravest  history,  —  that 
the  author  does  not  choose  to  write  down  what  he 
could  tell,  and  does  not  want  to  write  down  what 
he  may  tell. 

A  delightful  visit  of  three  days  in  Staffordshire  ; 
an  excited,  busy  stay  of  a  day  or  two  in  London ; 
three  or  four  days  at  Cambridge  ;  a  foray  with  a 
friend,  in  the  heart  of  England,  for  that  little  trio  of 
sights  which  everybody  sees,  and  everybody  ought 
to,  —  Stratford  on  Avon,  Warwick  Castle,  and  Kenil- 
worth,  —  a  trio  which  now  becomes  a  quartette,  since 
Rugby  is  so  sacred  a  place  to  so  many  of  us ;  a  few 
more  days  in  London,  and  a  few  more  in  Cambridge, 
—  brought  us  below  the  Tower  to  the  "  Baron  Osy  " 
steamer,  on  which  we  sailed  to  Antwerp.  The  cu- 


NINETY    DAYS    WORTH    OF    EUROPE. 

rious,  by  performing  the  addition  inti- 

Staffordshire  .3  >      J    * 

Gamble  3  or  I     mate(l  *&  the  margin,  and  introducing 
BBSm*?"  fTw     a  little  "  indeterminate  analysis  "  in  the 

Cambridge    .few       construction  Qf   t^e   WOIfo  "foray"  an(J 

"  few,"  can  make  out  just  how  much 
time  is  necessary  for  each  of  these  expeditions. 

I  was  principled  against  Chester.  It  was  very 
foolish,  perhaps  ;  but  the  last  words  almost  I  heard 
at  home,  from  one  whose  advice  I  have  always 
followed  to  my  advantage  and  disobeyed  to  my 
peril,  were  these  :  "  Don't  write  me  that  you  went 
first  to  Chester ; "  and  this,  not  but  what  it  is  an 
admirable  memorial  of  the  past  of  more  than  one 
age,  but  because  it  seems  added  upon  the  sea- voyage 
of  all  Americans,  as  if  Chester  were  a  sort  of  fore- 
castle of  the  steamer,  and  you  were  compelled  to 
pass  through  it  before  you  could  enter  England. 
When  I  meet  with  a  very  pertinacious  person  now, 
who  says,  "  You  should  have  seen  Chester ;  I  hope 
you  saw  Chester," — making  it,  indeed,  his  "Killie- 
crank-e-lem,"  —  I  bow  gravely,  and  say,  "Oh,  yes! 
I  was  very  much  interested  in  my  stay  in  Chester :  " 
but  I  do  not  generally  add,  that  my  stay  was  of 
three  minutes  and  twenty- seven  seconds  in  the  rail- 
way station  at  midnight,  as  I  was  on  my  way,  on  a 
rainy  night  in  December,  from  Liverpool  to  Dublin. 

This  is  a  long  parenthesis,  and  I  must  not  expend 
more  such  on  the  places  I  did  not  go  to. 

For  what  I  did  see  here  were  the  golden  days  of 


ENGLAND.  13 

young  October.  Whether  it  is  always-  so  or  not,  it 
ill  becomes  me  to  say;  but,  in  1859,  the  first  fort- 
night in  October  was  precisely  such  weather  as  it 
would  have  been  in  New  England.  We  have  a  pas- 
sion here  for  walking  about  in  these  delicious  golden 
days,  when  we  annually  ask,  whether  they  be  the 
real  Indian  summer  or  not,  and  expressing  a  gratified 
regret  that  the  season  is  all  our  own ;  that  in  Europe, 
particularly,  they  know  no  such  golden  glow,  or  echo 
of  the  summer  more  charming  than  the  original. 
Which  satisfaction,  for  the  future,  I  have  lost.  Never 
was  autumn  haze  more  seductive,  never  was  October 
sun  more  glowing,  never  was  light  more  golden, 
never  did  yellow  leaf  shine  more  like  jewel  on  green 
grass,  than  I  saw  them  at  Richmond,  at  Cambridge, 
at  Warwick,  at  Kenilworth,  at  Charlecote  Hall,  all 
around  Stafford;  and,  to  save  a  long  parenthesis  in 
the  next  chapter,  I  may  say,  never  did  traveller  on 
the  North  Biver  have  a  more  delicious  day  of  Indian 
summer  than  we  had  on  the  Rhine.  My  only  ther- 
mometrical  observation  is  one  made,  like  all  my  ob- 
servations, with  the  instruments  of  the  natives  ;  for 
the  rule  which  "  Punch  "  lays  down  about  drawings 
may  be  carried  out  in  all  a  traveller's  duties  :  "  You 
can  always,"  he  says,  "buy  better  drawings  than 
you  can  make."  So  I  found  under  Strasburg  Cathe- 
dral a  man  waiting  for  me  to  come,  with  a  much 
better  spy-glass  to  see  its  traceries  with  than  I  could 
have  carried.  And,  to  return  to  the  weather,  though 


u 


I  took  no  note  of  the  thermometer  in  Liverpool,  I 
do  know  that  the  barber  whom  I  had  occasion  to 
consult  there  had  lost  a  wax  image  in  his  window, 
because  the  heat  of  Oct.  3d  had  reduced  the  smiling 
maiden,  as  she  exhibited  her  bridal  coiffure,  into  a 
semi-fluid,  pasty  mass,  on  which  floated  pearl-dust, 
eyebrows,  and  carmine,  in  a  confusion  not  easily  re- 
conciled. I  offer  this  meteorological  observation  to  the 
Smithsonian  Institute,  as  my  contribution  to  science, 
on  the  temperature  of  Liverpool  on  the  3d  of  Oc- 
tober. 

"  But  you  do  not  mean  to  tell  us,"  replies  Worces- 
ter, in  its  gorgeous  autumn  tiara  of  crimson  and  gold, 
"  that  you  saw  any  such  brilliant  colors  on  the  Eng- 
lish foliage  as  you  used  to  see  here  from  your  own 
window,  when  you  looked  down  on  your  own  tulip- 
bed  ? "  for  you  must  know,  dear  reader,  that  the 
swamp  of  a  million  colors  which  blazed  each  year 
beneath  the  hill  on  which  stood  my  house  was  known 
as  "  Hale's  Tulip-bed  "  by  the  learned.  To  which  I 
reply  by  begging  no  one  to  be  excited,  nor  to  fear 
that  the  supremacy  in  color  is  to  be  stolen  from  the 
red-maples,  the  red-oaks,  the  sassafras,  the  tupelo  (if 
Worcester  had  any),  the  ash,  or  the  Virginia  creepers, 
or  the  sumach.  But  I  throw  in  this  contribution  to 
the  small- talk  of  coming  Octobers,  —  that  the  gor- 
geousness  of  our  foliage  depends,  not  on  our  climate, 
but  on  our  botany.  There  are  in  Massachusetts  a 
hundred  v  and  thirty  varieties  of  native  trees  :  in 


ENGLAND.  15 

England  there  are  only  thirty-nine.  There  are, 
therefore,  in  Massachusetts,  a  hundred  and  thirty 
chances  for  variety  of  autumn  color  against  only 
thirty-nine  in  England.  Out  of  the  hundred  and 
thirty,  it  happens  that  those  which  do  our  bloodiest 
work  in  the  autumn  picture  —  those  which  "  grind 
the  red,"  as  David  would  have  said  (he  of  the  French 
Directory,  not  he  of  Bethlehem  and  Jerusalem)  — 
are  the  Virginian  creeper,  the  sumach,  the  oaks,  the 
tupelo  and  ash,  and,  best  of  all,  the  maple  ;  which 
are  all  our  own.  They  do  not  have  them  in  the 
English  forest ;  and  they,  therefore,  lack  such  color 
there.  But  the  gold  of  their  birches  is  as  rich  as 
ours  ;  the  blaze  of  their  chestnuts  seemed  to  me  as 
fine  as  ours  :  and,  on  the  other  hand,  a  Virginia 
creeper,  transplanted  into  an  English  garden,  takes 
as  gorgeous  color  as  it  would  at  home.  There  are 
some  magnificent  Virginia  creepers  in  Florence,  on 
the  back  of  the  Pitti  Palace,  which  were  of  more 
brilliant  crimson,  as  I  saw  them  in  November,  than 
any  of  the  gay  upholstery  within  that  pile. 

I  used  to  walk  with  pleasure  into  the  u  American 
garden "  of  one  of  my  friends  ;  but  not  so  much, 
after  all,  because  I  was  at  home  there.  My  great 
favorites  were  the  splendid  tufts  of  pampa  grass, 
some  twenty  feet  high  !  Of  course,  they  had  a  right 
in  the  American  garden,  but  not  in  mine.  They  re- 
minded me  of  Mrs.  L.'s  story  of  her  Swiss  journey, 
when  some  one  said  to  her,  "  All  this  must  be  very 


16  NINETY   DAYS'   WORTH    OF    EUROPE. 

little  to  you,  dear  Miss  A.,  after  Chimborazo."  So 
it  happened  to  me  in  Italy :  when  I  had  explained 
myself  in  good  Latin  to  be  an  American,  the  old 
priest,  with  whom  I  talked,  at  once  proposed  Spanish 
as  my  native  language.  I  think  I  see  myself,  in  sight 
of  Chimborazo,  reading  a  Spanish  newspaper  under 
the  shade  of  a  clump  of  pampa  grass,  "  watching  the 
herds,"  and  solacing  myself  with  the  thought,  that 
there  is  no  place  like  home. 

Nothing  had  quite  prepared  me  for  what  I  may 
call  the  independence  of  a  large  English  estate. 
There  is,  I  think,  a  certain  pride,  even  though  one 
swear  by  Adam  Smith,  in  making  the  place  a  little 
Robinson  Crusoedom,  —  sufficient  for  its  own  wants, 
and  not  obliged  to  emigrate.  On  an  estate  where  I 
happened  to  see  the  working  of  the  system,  a  new 
farm  had  been  laid  out.  A  house  was  to  be  built  for 
the  tenant,  —  very  much  such  a  house  as  I  lived  in 
in  Worcester,  but  that  it  was  brick  instead  of  wood. 
Then,  of  course,  barns  and  other  farm  -  buildings 
were  to  be  added.  For  these  buildings,  the  plans 
were  drawn  by  the  agent  of  the  estate.  He  himself 
superintended  the  building.  The  stone  was  quarried 
on  the  estate ;  the  brick,  burned  on  the  estate ;  the 
wood,  cut  and  sawed  on  the  estate,  the  saws  being 
driven  by  their  own  waterfall.  Every  mason  and 
bricklayer  and  carpenter  hired  was  one  of  the  laborers 
who  grew  up  on  the  estate.  The  lime  and  paper- 
hangings  and  nails  were  the  only  articles  in  the  trans- 


ENGLAND.  17 

action  for  which  they  were  indebted  to  "  foreigners." 
Here,  at  the  top  of  civilization,  was  the  same  luxury 
in  which,  a  year  before,  I  found  Hayes  Copp  living 
under  the  shade  of  Mount  Madison.  He  had  made 
his  own  farm  with  his  own  hands,  and  was  dependent 
annually  on  civilization  only  for  nails  (always  nails, 
you  observe),  needles,  salt,  and  fish-hooks.  For  pins, 
it  was  observed  that  his  wife  had  always  had  two, 
and  always  knew  where  they  were.  On  this  English 
estate,  the  owner  himself  employed  fifty  men  and 
twenty  women,  besides  the  house-servants.  There 
were  eight  farms  let  to  tenants;  each  of  whom,  of 
course,  employed  his  own  laborers.  Such  farming  as 
that  of  the  home-farm  I  had  never  seen,  because  I 
had  never  seen  so  many  varieties  of  farm -work 
brought  together  on  a  large  scale.  Farming,  if  I 
may  call  it  so,  included  not  only  the  raising  of  cattle, 
of  sheep,  of  wheat,  and  all  the  other  grains,  exten- 
sive ornamental  gardening,  and  game  enough  for 
the  shooting  of  five  or  six  thousand  head  a  year, 
but  the  cutting  and  sawing  all  timber  that  was  needed 
on  the  place,  and  the  raising  in  nurseries,  and  trans- 
planting, trees  for  new  plantations  on  an  extensive 
chase. 

This  chase  extended  some  nine  miles  across  coun- 
try with  almost  no  profitable  vegetation  on  it.  It 
was  not  green  even :  it  was  purple  with  heather,  and 
yellow  with  broom.  It  was  lovely  to  drive  through, 
and  had  cover  enough  for  pheasants  in  some  places ; 

2 


18  NINETY   DAYS'  WORTH    OF    EUROPE. 

but,  to  a  farmer's  eye,  was  desolation  itself.  Its  des- 
tiny, however,  is  to  be  reclaimed  by  these  well- 
planned  and  boldly-executed  plantations. 

Cambridge,  and,  in  particular,  Trinity  College, 
became  my  especial  English  home ;  and  to  its  kind 
and  bewitching  hospitality  I  look  back  now  with  the 
pleasure  which  only  a  home  commands.  But,  if  I 
dare  to  attempt  to  describe  an  English  university,  it 
must  be  in  one  of  the  closing  chapters  of  these  frag- 
ments. 

Here  are  some  scraps  from  journals  and  letters, 
which  will  show  a  little  of  passing  impressions  of 
these  different  points,  as  they  got  noted  at  the  time. 
But  how  much,  alas,  is  never  noted  !  The  omission 
of  all  personal  detail  relating  to  anybody  but  myself, 
will,  in  a  measure,  account  for  their  fragmentary 
aspect. 

CAMBRIDGE,  Oct.  11. 

Our  party  at  breakfast  were  three  graduates,  four 
undergraduates,  and  I.  Half  of  them  wore  their 
gowns,  but  took  them  off  on  coming  in.  The  room 
was  much  such  a  room  as  one  of  the  attic  rooms  in 
"  Massachusetts  "  would  have  been,  if  the  proportions 
were  a  little  larger  each  way.  Three  or  four  such 
open  into  each  other  in  a  Fellow's  suite,  such  as  this 
was.  W.'s  rooms  (in  New  Court,  Trinity)  are  ex- 
actly like  a  set  in  Divinity  in  size  and  general  arrange- 
ment. But  stone  walls,  of  course,  give  a  very  deep 


ENGLAND.  19 

window  -  seat ;  and  the  architecture 
there  requires  a  window  high  from 
the  ground,  of  this  shape.  This 
breakfast  was  precisely  what  would 
have  been  served  at  any  breakfast 
party  with  us.  The  talk,  too,  was 
perfectly  like  we  should  have  had  at 
home.  .  .  . 

As  I  think  I  have  said,  his  room  is  princely  and 
his  books.  He  showed  me  a  marble  bust  of  Byron, 
from  the  life,  by  a  pupil  of  Thorwaldsen ;  a  wicked 
head,  handsome  as  the  Devil,  and  full  as  Epicurean 
and  sensual.  He  had  a  fine  bust  of  Goethe ;  and, 
on  showing  me  a  good  bas-relief  of  Tennyson, 
called  my  attention  to  the  likeness  of  his  profile  — 
head  indeed  —  to  Goethe's.  He  was  in  college  with 
Tennyson.  The  little  first  volume  of  the  poems 
which  Emerson  brought  over  from  England  in 
our  day,  and  the  girls,  not  to  say  the  boys,  copied 
so,  was  printed  in  1831,  while  Tennyson  was  still 
an  undergraduate.  Lately,  a  knot  of  his  friends  have 
had  his  bust  taken,  to  put  in  the  library  of  Trinity. 
You  remember,  that,  when  the  Westminster- Abbey 
people  refused  Thorwaldsen's  Byron,  these  Trinity 
people  gratefully  took  it.  It  is  the  finest  ornament 
of  their  library,  and  the  finest  modern  portrait- statue 
I  have  ever  seen ;  not  excepting  the  Gen.  Warren  on 
Bunker  Hill,  nor  Houdon's  Washington ! 

Well,  our  friend  then  took  us  (these  people  were  all 
so  kind)  in  person  to  the  great  University  Library, 


20  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

which,  was,  in  my  boyhood,  the  second  in  the  world ; 
perhaps  is  now,  —  Greek  antiques  in  the  hall,  or  vesti- 
bule ;  five  halls,  of  various  size  and  architecture,  for 
the  books,  the  largest  truly  grand.  The  Codex  Bezae, 
one  of  the  four  oldest  manuscripts  (see,  if  you  are 
curious,  the  preface  to  Griesbach),  often  called  the 
Cambridge  Manuscript,  lies  open  in  a  glass  case,  that 
he  who  runs  may  read.  The  -page  is  a  small  quarto. 
The  ink  is  as  distinct  as  this.  The  text  is  Greek  on 
the  left,  Latin  on  the  right;  both  perfectly  legible  as 
soon  as  you  are  used  to  the  letter.  It  was  open  at  the 
passage  in  Luke,  just  after  the  rubbing  the  ears  of  corn 
by  the  disciples,  where  this  manuscript  supplies  a  read- 
ing known  nowhere  else,  my  friends  thought.  You 
may  look  up  the  Greek  in  Alford  :  but  the  ladies  will 
be  satisfied  with  the  Latin ;  which,  indeed,  I  copied 
on  the  envelope  of  mamma's  letter  :  Eodem  die  videns 
quemdam  operantem  sabbato,  dixit  illi,  Homo  siquidem 
scis  quod  fads  beatus  es,  si  autem  nescis  maledictus  es,  et 
trabaricator  legis.  I  doubt  if  you  find  trabaricator ; 
but  the  Greek  is  Kal  Trapapdrw  v6tuov.  Is  not  that  funny, 
and  good  sabbath  doctrine  ?  *  Here  my  candle  burns 
out.  I  must  undress  in  the  dark.  .  .  . 

*  The  Greek  is,  7??  avTrj  ri{j£pa  -deaadfievo^  ruva  epya£6[ievov 
TCJ  Ga[3(3u,T(f),  elnev  avror  'Av&p&Tre,  el  fiev  oldas  ri  Trocel^  paKup- 
LOS  el'  el  6e  pj  olfiag  eTTiKardparo^  K.CLI,  napa/3dT7]G  el  rov  vofjiov. 
Of  which  Alford  says,  "  Its  form  and  contents  speak  for  its  originality, 
and,  I  believe,  its  authenticity." 

The  meaning  is,  "  On  the  same  day,  seeing  one  working  on  the  sab- 
bath, he  said  to  him,  Man,  if  thou  knowest  what  thou  dost,  happy  art 
thou;  but,  if  thou  knowest  not  what  thou  dost,  cursed  art  thou,  and  a 
breaker  of  the  law." 


ENGLAND.  21 

I  had  meant  to  tell  more  of  tlie  marvels  of  the  two 
libraries ;  the  University  Library  far  the  largest,  that 
of  Trinity  the  most  attractive.  It  is  in  a  room  not 
very  unlike  the  old  Congress  Library  Hall,  carefully 
cared  for,  and  with  splendid  show-things :  first,  the 
manuscript-book  in  which  Milton  wrote  "Lycidas," 
"  Comus,"  the  original  dramatic  draught  of  "Paradise 
Lost,"  and  most  of  his  sonnets.  Near  the  end  of  the 
book,  between  two  sonnets,  is  the  place  where  the  poor 
fellow's  eyes  gave  out,  and  the  amanuensis  began. 
I  found  myself  kneeling  before  the  desk  where  it  was 
kept,  not  in  homage,  but  because  that  was  the  con- 
venient attitude  for  reading.  I  could  therefore  ap- 
preciate the  story,  that  Coleridge  knelt,  and  kissed 
the  book,  when  they  showed  it  to  him.  That  manu- 
script collection  is  very  curious  throughout.  I  asked 
my  friend  if  our  old  story  were  true,  that  the  fash- 
ionable Greek  type  of  our  day  (what  we  used  to  call 
the  Oxford  type)  was  cut  after  Person's  manuscript 
Greek.  He  replied  by  handing  me  two  plays  in 
Person's  own  handschrift,  of  the  most  exquisite 
neatness  of  character ;  any  number  of  autograph  let- 
ters of  Isaac  Newton's  and  their  other  notables,  most 
carefully  kept ;  the  original  of  one  or  two  of  Bacon's 
works,  and  so  on;  all  Bentley's  manuscripts,  in  another 
alcove ;  curious  old  monastic  manuscripts,  running  all 
the  way  back,  with  very  droll  pictures  illustrative  of 
monastic  life,  and  showing  —  what  seems  very  odd  — 
how  the  Roman  house  of  the  Pompeiian  pattern  sur- 


22  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

vived  even  to  the  eleventh,  and  twelfth  centuries.  It 
is  bad,  of  course,  to  skim  over  these  marvels  :  but  you 
get  a  good  deal  of  light  in  simply  knowing  how  they 
look ;  and  vastly  more  faith  in  criticism,  and  more 
respect  for  it,  when  you  see  in  what  perfect  condition 
the  materials  are. 

Our  walk  included  a  very  funny  visit  to  the  kitchens 
and  plate-rooms  of  Trinity  and  Caius. 

[On  a  sheet  of  paper  with  an  old  print  of  Shakspere's  birthplace.] 
WEDNESDAY  AFTERNOON,  sunset. 

In  this  house,  at  the  window  above  the  little  sign, 
I  write  these  lines.  We  have  just  come  over  from 
Warwick,  after  a  charming  day.  We  are  now  going 
to  the  church;  from  which,  at  this  moment  (6.15),  I 
have  just  returned  to  the  Shakspere  Inn,  where  we 
are  to  spend  the  night.  You  cannot  think  how  nice 
and  satisfactory  it  all  is.  Warwick,  where  we  loafed 
and  laughed  till  we  died,  was  in  the  agonies  of  a 
great  sort  of  country  fair,  called  a  statute,  or  mops ; 
being  the  annual  day  when  laborers  come  together  to 
be  hired  by  farmers.  This  place  is  enjoying  another  ; 
and  it  was  from  streets  crowded  with  English  men 
and  boys  in  their  funny  smock-frocks,  and  girls  and 
women  as  well,  that  we  drove  out  into  the  quiet 
street,  where  the  perfectly  familiar  Shakspere  House 
stands.  In  the  recent  restoration,  every  thing  to  the 
left  of  the  line  I  have  drawn  through  the  dog's  legs 


ENGLAND.  T6 

has  been  taken  away,  as  not  ancient.  Under  the  same 
rule,  almost  every  thing  has  been  taken  from  the 
rooms,  except  a  few  good  pictures,  one  of  which  was 
a  copy  of  the  Chandos  portrait  (which  I  saw  at  the 
New- York  Exhibition,  in  the  original),  and  such  mat- 
ters as  the  exhibitors  of  the  house  need  for  their  con- 
venience. These  people  (two  nice,  lady-like  women) 
live  in  the  house  itself;  and  three  rooms  only  are 
shown :  there  are,  I  suppose,  three  more.  So  it 
stands,  in  excellent  condition,  to  show  how  they  lived 
in  those  days  of  cold  floors.  How  they  did  live 
without  carpets  (which  I  used  to  think,  from  the 
way  the  almanac  speaks  of  them,  were  simultaneous- 
ly introduced  into  all  England  on  the  same  day  of 
the  month),  I  should  find  it  hard  to  tell.  But  that 
they  did  live,  is  evident  from  two  facts :  first,  that 
we,  their  descendants,  are  alive ;  second,  that  the 
laboring  people,  as  one  learns  to  say  here,  live  in 
exactly  the  same  way  now.  "When  we  went,  in  the 
evening,  to  Ann  Hatha way's  cottage  (of  which  hereaf- 
ter), there  we  found  just  such  a  house  as  Shakspere's, 
in  all  these  matters  of  stone  floors  and  walls,  in  present 
occupancy:  in  the  part  we  saw,  a  man  and  his  wife, 
who  are,  I  suppose,  regular  "  laborers,"  he  certainly, 
on  some  neighboring  farm. 

There  is  no  great  occasion  to  stay  in  the  "  birth- 
place ; "  and,  after  I  found  we  could  not  sleep  there,  I 
was  ready  to  take  up  the  line  of  march  to  the  church, 
where  he  was  buried.  Asking  our  way,  therefore, 


24  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

of  people  uniformly  civil,  but  sometimes  as  ignorant 
as  Robinson  found  the  "  common  people "  when  he 
asked  what  o'clock  it  was,  we  came  to  this  lovely 
church.  I  shall  not  say  it  is  the  finest  parish  church 
in  England ;  for  I  have  already  said  that,  and  believed 
it,  on  competent  local  authority,  of  every  church  I 
have  been  into.  But  you  can  understand  that  a  fine 
cruciform  stone  church,  two  hundred  and  ten  feet 
long,  with  galore  of  light,  good  (modern)  stained 
windows,  and  endless  monuments,  running  back 
who  shall  say  how  far,  —  you  will  be  willing  to  own, 
that,  even  without  Shakspere's  tomb,  this  would  have 
been  a  good  place  to  go  to.  It  is  in  a  large  church- 
yard, with  a  curious  avenue  of  trees  close  trimmed. 
The  Avon  makes  a  slight  bend  here,  and  washes  one 
side  or  more  of  the  churchyard  :  it  is  a  stream  large 
enough  for  canal-boats  here ;  a  little  larger  and  a  good 
deal  deeper  than  the  Chicopee  at  Brookfield.  The 
church,  I  need  not  say,  was  locked;  but  I  need  not 
say  also,  that,  as  I  went  in  search  of  the  key,  I  met 
the  sexton  coming  with  it,  having  seen  us  pass,  and 
guessing  where  we  were  going,  though  the  church- 
yard is  a  thoroughfare  (let  these  English  people 
alone  for  knowing  a  "  foreigner,"  and  guessing  what 
he  is  doing).  I  need  not  say,  either,  that  he  was 
carrying  a  clean  surplice  on  his  arm  for  the  vestry. 
We  had  just  light  enough  to  spell  out  "  Good  friend, 
for  Jesus'  sake,  forbear,"  and  the  rest  of  the  inscrip- 
tions, and  to  survey  the  monuments ;  to  wander,  as 


ENGLAND.  25 

people  say  so  naturally,  among  tombs  and  statues ; 
and  to  come  out  in  the  gloaming  of  a  lovely  day, 
with  the  full  moon  rising  on  the  Avon. 

LEAMINGTON  STATION,  Oct.  13,  P.M. 

While  I  am  waiting  for  the  train  to  Kenilworth, 
(think  of  a  train  uniting  Queen  Anne  and  Queen 
Elizabeth,  —  Leamington  and  Kenilworth  !)  I  resume 
this  wondrous  tale.  Our  inn  at  Stratford  was  so 
funny  !  Our  sitting-room  was  named  "  As  you  Like 
It ; "  each  other  was  named  after  one  play  of  Shak- 
spere  or  another ;  and  all  just  like  the  theatre,  as 
always. 

We  took  a  fly  *  at  half-past  eight  down  again  to 
the  Shakspere  House,  and  bought  a  few  more  pic- 
tures ;  and  thence  back  to  Warwick  as  fast  as  we 
could  come  :  for,  as  we  had  found  yesterday,  Warwick 
Castle  —  one  of  the  great  show-places  of  the  king- 
dom —  is  only  to  be  seen  by  strangers  who  come 
before  ten,  A.M.  We  got  there  on  the  stroke  of  ten, 
and  made  the  tour  of  the  show-apartments. 

Well,  it  is  very,  very  funny,  —  the  cicerone  speech 
of  the  housekeeper ;  and  the  being  put  through  room 
after  room,  from  a  bison's  head  to  a  picture  by  Titian, 
and  from  that  to  a  child's  arquebuse  ;  and  I  could 
make  a  great  deal  of  fun  of  it,  if  that  were  the  best 


*  If  I  understand  rightly,  any  kind  of  vehicle  which  is  a  cab  in  town 
is  a  fly  in  the  country.    This  was  a  one-horse  carryall. 


26  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

use  of  this  paper.  But  I  really  felt  a  good  deal  of 
gratitude  to  different  earls  of  Warwick  of  three  en- 
tirely different  families,  if  not  four,  —  from  "  Guy, 
the  Saxon  giant,  nine  feet  high  (armor  still  shown)," 
down  to  "  the  present  earl,"  —  for  saving,  for  my 
particular  purposes,  the  marvellous  museum  of  pic- 
tures, statues,  and  curiosities,  which  had  been  brought 
together  here.  If,  also,  I  was  to  see  them  in  an 
hour's  time,  I  was  glad  that  somebody  stood  by,  who, 
for  a  shilling,  would  tell  me  what  they  were,  —  a 
prompt,  living  catalogue.  I  do  not  think  it  is  on  the 
same  principle  as  the  parish  churches'  pre-eminence 
that  this  is  called  "  the  finest  baronial  seat  now  in 
England."  That  phrase  is  not  a  very  sweeping  one, 
and  that  is  just  what  it  is  ;  and  looking  back  on  it,  now 
seven  hours  since  I  was  there  (in  which  I  have  lived 
back  and  forth  in  eight  or  ten  different  centuries),  I 
think  the  great  hall  of  entrance,  "  sixty-five  feet  in 
length  and  forty-two  feet  in  breadth,  and  said  to  be 
the  most  remarkable  baronial  hall  in  Europe,"  lives 
in  my  memory  most  distinctly  as  the  most  character- 
istic thing  of  all  these  marvels,  and  is  like  to  remain  so. 
And  yet  I  saw,  for  my  first  time,  really  palatial  adorn- 
ments,, —  as,  Buhl  tables  of  magnificent  size  and  pro- 
portions, mosaic  Louis  Quatorze  work,  and  all  that ; 
and,  almost  for  the  first  time  of  course,  Titians,  Ru- 
benses,  many  Vandykes,  one  Guido,  one  Rembrandt, 
and  later  portraits  by  Kneller,  Reynolds,  and  the 
moderns  between  ;  running  back  indeed,  as  the  por- 


ENGLAND.  27 

trait  gallery  does,  to  original  portraits  of  the  Earl  of 
Leicester  and  his  brother. 

I  cannot  tell  you  how  I  enjoyed  these,  and  how 
they  re-assured  me  about  the  enjoyment  of  picture 
galleries ;  for  I  have  doubted  very  seriously,  whether, 
because  I  know  so  little  of  it  all,  fine  galleries  might 
not  overpower  me,  alarm  me,  and  fail  to  please  me. 

The  grounds  are  as  fine  as  the  house ;  and,  without 
referring  you  to  a  guide-book  which  you  have  not 
got,  I  wish  you  would  look  at  Mrs.  Stowe's  account 
of  the  house.  From  Guy's  Tower  is  one  of  those 
peerless  views  such  as  I  have  had  two-  or  three 
of  in  England.  It  is  very  curious  to  see  the  little 
town  nestled  up  around  the  great  defiant  castle,  and 
entirely  commanded  by  its  artillery,  whether  of  later 
or  olden  times.  The  Avon  winds  right  through  the 
grounds,  giving  old  bridges  and  new  in  the  prospect ; 
and  the  meadows  spotted  with  cattle,  and  the  grounds 
fairly  forest-shaded,  are  lovely  beyond  eulogy. 

The  Warwick  Vase  is  kept  in  a  green-house.  It 
is  a  great  deal  bigger  than  I  had  thought,  —  twenty- 
one  feet  in  girth  at  the  top.  As  you  stand  in  front  of 
this  house,  and  look  out  on  a  long,  beautiful  vista,  it 
is  not  too  artificial,  and  is  beautiful  enough  for  one 
to  imagine  himself  at  home. 

As  we  came  out,  the  old  portress  insisted  on  show- 
ing us  the  great  Guy's  porridge-pot ;  and  then,  on  this 
lovely  day,  along  this  lovely  road,  we  walked  back,  two 
miles  I  suppose,  to  Leamington.  It  is  at  Kenilworth 


28  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  or  EUROPE. 

Station  that  I  am  finishing  this,  after  an  afternoon 
which  fairly  matches  the  morning.  But  this  has  been 
the  ruined  brother,  if  I  may  call  Leicester's  Kenil- 
worth  so ;  while  Warwick  is  the  successful  Joseph- 
Surface  brother,  kept  elegant  in  its  restoration  and 
pride.  The  walk  from  the  station,  to  those  who  do 
not  take  the  'bus,  is  charming,  —  perhaps  a  mile  to 
where  the  ruins  burst  upon  you.  I  wish  I  could 
give  you  a  better  idea  of  distances  ;  but  your  eye 
gets  puzzled,  and  the  guide-books  give  moral  disser- 
tations instead  of  measurements.  But  I  should  say, 
that  if  you  took  the  houses  round  Blackstone  Square, 
with  a  lower  range  along  the  east  side  of  Washington 
Street  for  the  outer  walls  of  the  castle  (which  had,  of 
course,  a  court  within),  you  might  then  build  out  the 
out-buildings  from  them  in  different  directions,  and 
that  that  would  be  about  the  dimensions.  But  of 
the  massiveness  of  the  building,  all  modern  com- 
parisons fail  to  tell.'  What  they  call  Caesar's  Tower, 
because  it  is  so  old  they  do  not  know  who  built  it, 
has  walls  sixteen  feet  thick.  The  rest,  alas  !  was  not 
so  substantial ;  and  the  Commonwealth's  soldiers,  and 
the  ivy  still  worse,  have  made  sad  havoc  of  it.  Yet 
it  is  now  just  such  a  place  as  Cherubina  would  have 
liked  to  take  tent  in ;  and  one  rather  wonders,  that, 
in  the  passion  for  restorations,  nobody  has  taken  hold 
of  one  or  two  of  these  buildings. 

It  was  my  first  ruin ;  and  I  could  well  use  this  new 
sheet  in  giving  you  the  impress  which   ruin,   and 


ENGLAND.  29 

meditation  on  ruin,  wrought  on  me.  I  was  con- 
stantly set  thinking  of  our  unique  ruin,  —  Ticonde- 
roga, —  utterly  unlike  though  every  association  but 
ruin  is,  every  historical  memory,  and  every  present 
aspect.  There  is  the  same  sense  of  the  change  of  the 
world's  centres  and  its  interests  ;  there  are  the  same 
moralizations  on  the  vanity  of  human  expectations 
and  plans  ;  even  the  same  mental  effort  in  making 
out,  in  the  luxurious  sheep-walks  of  each,  whether 
this  be  a  bit  of  old  cellar  or  of  new  drain.  But  in 
the  masses  themselves,  yet  four  and  five  stories  high, 
of  the  old  palace,  there  is,  of  course,  no  compare 
with  any  thing  that  you  or  I  have  ever  seen  until  this 
living  day. 

ANTWERP,  Oct.  18. 

Hampton  Court  is  much  larger  and  much  finer  than 
I  had  fancied  ;  for  I  had  always  ridiculed  it,  in  my 
own  mind,  as  a  Cockney  palace  and  marvel.  The 
grounds  are  lovely;  the  buildings,  brick  and  stone; 
but  curious  very,  and  in  some  features  very  grand. 
You  know  from  this  last  book  of  Dickens's  (what  is 
its  name  ?)  that  the  living  rooms  in  it  are  occupied  by 
pensioned  people  of  one  sort  and  another  ;  but  much 
the  greater  part  of  the  first  floor  is  made  up  of  rooms 
of  State,  which  are  thrown  open,  without  fee  or  ticket, 
to  the  universal  public.  Five  hundred  a  day  go  in 
the  average.  Nothing  at  Washington  is  more  freely 
displayed ;  and  in  all  America  there  are  hardly  more 


30  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

pictures  of  worth  than  in  this  comparatively  indiffer- 
ent gallery.  Those  three  last  words  have  been  forced 
from  me  by  a  day  at  Antwerp.  Yesterday  morning, 
I  should  not  have  written  them ;  and  now  I  beg  that 
the  "  comparatively  "  may  have  full  force,  and  I  not 
be  thought  snobbish.  For,  as  I  went  to  Hampton 
Court,  even  with  my  eyes  a  little  opened  by  the 
collection  at  Warwick,  that  gallery,  though  curious 
mainly  on  its  historical  side,  was  comparatively  mag- 
nificent. To  a  considerable  extent,  it  is  a  portrait 
gallery  running  back  to  Henry  VII.  and  before. 
When  you  think  of  it,  every  king,  queen,  prince, 
and  the  rest,  in  every  age,  must  have  been  painted 
as  often  as  our  Eugenics  and  Victorias  :  and  in 
any  nation  such  pictures  would  never  be  destroyed  ; 
least  of  all  in  this  England,  which  preserves  every 
thing.  Gradually,  however,  families  die  out,  palaces 
are  clawed  down,  and  so  on ;  and  all  the  portraits 
of  all  these  kings  and  queens  and  principalities  and 
powers  come  floating  in,  as  to  a  grand  receptacle,  to 
Hampton.  They  are  admirably  cared  for  and  illus- 
trated ;  and  one  who  has  my  enthusiasm  for  history 
and  English  history  would  be  glad  to  go  there  very 
often. 

Not  to  try  to  generalize  as  to  a  collection  which 
has,  on  the  one  hand,  Raphael's  cartoons  in  it,  and 
some  pictures,  on  the  other  hand,  which  you  might 
have  thought  painted  by  me,  I  will  confess  that  I 
staid  the  longest,  and  have  remembered  the  most 


ENGLAND.  31 

often,  where,  in  "William  III.'s  bedroom,  are  Sir  Peter 
Lely's  portraits  of-  those  wicked  beauties  of  Charles 
II.'s  time.  It  is  pretty  clear  that  Lely  flattered  them 
all ;  for  they  have  all  the  same  drowsy  eye,  and  per- 
haps the  same  general  expression.  But  they  do  not 
look  wicked ;  they  are  very  beautiful :  and  you  do 
not  wonder  that  the  men  were  so  in  love  with  them 
as  they  pretended  to  be.  I  cannot  make  out  how 
such  art  as  Lely's  should  be  lost  utterly  after  a  gene- 
ration. Kneller's  portraits  are  very  fine  j  but,  after 
him,  the  most  perfect  signboardism  comes  in.  I  wish 

Peter  Lely  would  come  back,  and  paint .     There 

is  not,  in  the  whole  range  of  them,  portrait-painting 
to  be  compared  to  his  of  women ;  and,  with  the  advan- 
tage of  two  centuries  of  subjugation  of  color,  the  tints 
are  still  as  fresh  and  sunny  as  you  want,  in  the  least, 
to  see.  I  have  said  to  somebody  else,  and  I  repeat 
now^,  that  there  is  no  difficulty  nor  suspicion  about  the 
rank  of  the  acknowledged  great  artists.  I  had  as 
lief  go  through  one  of  these  collections  without  a 
catalogue  as  with,  and  should  have  no  fear  of  missing 
one  picture  by  one  of  the  masters  of  the  art.  My 
only  wonder  is,  that,  for  the  sake  of  •  the  history 
of  art,  they  stuff  in  so  many  poor  ones.  I  should 
as  soon  compel  you  to  have  Matthew  Prior  and 
Henry  James  Pye  in  your  book-rack  because  you 
have  Milton  and  Tennyson  there,  and  I  thought  you 
ought  to  illustrate  the  history  of  poetry. 


32  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

LONDON,  ST.  KATHERINE'S  DOCK, 
STEAMER  "  BARON  OSY,"  Oct.  16, 1859. 

DEAR  CHARLES,  —  We  are  bidding  good-bye  to 
London  on  our  Way  to  Antwerp  and  the  Rhine.  As 
usual  with  travellers  far  from  home,  we  are  on  board 
the  packet  an  hour  too  early.  We  have  surveyed  the 
misty  river ;  the  fog  too  deep  for  us  to  see  the  Tower, 
which  is  close  by ;  and  I  have  come  into  the  saloon 
to  write  this  letter  on  London  to  you.  Thus  far,  in 
all  my  letters  home,  I  have  hardly  spoken  of  London  : 
yet  I  have  been  here  now  three  times  (the  second 
only  for  a  night)  ;  and,  from  the  first  morning  that  I 
looked  out  on  tile  roofs  and  old  London  signs,  I  have 
felt  completely  at  home.  It  seems  as  if  it  would  be 
a  very  agreeable  place  to  live  in ;  and  I  leave  it  with 
regret,  though  to  return  so  soon.  And  I  think  you 
would  enjoy  London  as  no  other  place  that  I  know 
of,  because  its  contrivances  of  high  civilization  for 
speed  and  time-saving  are  very  much  of  your  sort. 
It  is  not  only  a  very  comfortable  place  :  it  is  a  very 
rapid  place,  and  entirely  passes  any  thing  we  have 
ever  seen  in  the  niceties  of  its  public  as  of  its  pri- 
vate arrangements.  The  postal  arrangements  beat 
every  thing.  It  is  not  merely  in  the  hourly  delivery ; 
but  in  the  facilities  for  mailing  at  stations  —  for  book 
and  parcel  mailing,  and  all  such  —  it  is  admirable. 
We  are  apt  to  pride  ourselves  on  the  telegraph ;  but, 
when  I  had  to  use  it  at  Cambridge,  I  found,  they 
gave  me  twenty  words,  fifty-eight  miles,  for  thirty-six 


ENGLAND.  33 

4 

cents  (the  minimum).  From  Worcester  to  Boston 
this  would  have  cost  me  forty-five  cents.  I  had  left 
a  trunk  (intentionally),  which  I  wanted  afterwards. 
My  London  hotel  was  full  four  miles  from  the  Lon- 
don Station  of  the  Cambridge  Railway  (Eastern-Coun- 
ties) :  yet  I  sent  my  despatch  after  five,  P.M.  ;  and  at 
ten  at  night  I  had  the  trunk  in  my  room  at  Cam- 
bridge. The  omnibus  and  cab  service  are  inimitable ; 
and,  to  sum  up,  my  impression  of  London  is  of  a 
place  where  it  is  easier  to  compass  the  extremes  of 
the  town  than  it  is  in  Boston.  "How  far  to  the 
Eastern -Counties  Station?"  said  I,  as  I  paid  my 
hotel  bill,  Friday.*  "  Three  miles  two  furlongs  and 
seven  rods,"  said  the  accurate  porter  at  once.  I  was 
aghast.  " I  have  only  twenty  minutes,"  said  I.  "I 
think  we  can  do  it,"  said  the  cabman.  "  Don't  try 
unless  you  are  sure,"  said  I.  "  I  am  sure,"  said  he, 
"  if  you  will  give  me  a  little  extra."  And  do  it  we 
did ;  though  we  met  droves  of  sheep,  of  cattle,  coal- 
carts,  and  it  is  hard  to  say  what  not.  I  should  not 
have  risked  this  between  my  house  and  Winnissimet 
Ferry,  which  is  not  so  far. 

It  is  ridiculously  home-like.  In  the  streets  the 
names  and  signs  are  familiar,  if  only  from  the  adver- 
tisements in  Dickens  and  Thackeray.  The  shops  are 
small ;  the  same  front  as  ours,  but  very  shallow : 
but  the  shopping  runs  into  such  infinite  detail,  — 


At  another  hotel  from  that  mentioned  above. 
3 


34  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

every  conceivable  provision  for  human  comfort  espe- 
cially, —  that  it  must  be  the  hardest  of  places  to 
keep  money  in.  I  believe,  if  you  had  a  peculiar  hole 
between  the  third  and  fourth  upper  molar  of  the  left 
jaw,  and  had  reason  to  think  that  a  tooth-pick  of 
nickel,  cut  with  cycloidal  lines,  and  curved  on  the 
pattern  of  the  lines  of  the  pillars  of  the  Parthenon, 
was  necessary  for  it,  and  went  into  a  tooth-pick  shop 
and  asked  for  that,  you  would  find  that  that  particular 
thing  had  been  provided  for  another  emergency  like 
yours,  and  a  stock  was  kept  with  a  view  to  future 
necessities.  The  stationery-shops  are  ravishing  :  so 
are  the  book-shops,  old  and  new.  Every  thing  is 
made  at  the  convenience  of  the  purchaser,  and  not 
of  the  maker. 

All  the  way  through,  however,  you  see  that  awful 
division  of  castes  which  is  the  curse  of  life  here.  I 
do  not  know  any  thing  so  amazing  nor  so  sorrowful 
as  the  evening  aspect  of  the  streets,  especially  the 
by-streets,  in  contrast  with  the  day  aspect  of  the  fine 
streets.  This,  you  see,  is  not  "  the  season : "  and 
the  streets  of  the  West  End,  —  say,  Belgravia, — 
through  which  I  walked  last  night,  are  as  quiet  as 
the  grave ;  scarce  a  light  visible  in  any  house,  but  few 
people  on  foot,  and  no  carriages.  An  hour  after,  I 
was  in  a  little  rag-lane  full  of  junk-shops,  as  I  should 
call  them.  It  was  one  blaze  of  light  from  the  displays 
of  the  people  peddling  or  selling  every  thing,  from 
India-rubber  balls  round  to  mutton-chops ;  and  such 


ENGLAND.  35 

rags  you  never  saw  out  of  North.  Street,  and  scarcely 
there. 

As  to  the  home-feeling  of  London,  I  may  add  a 
word,  perhaps,  to  what  I  thus  wrote  at  the  time.  I 
think  all  New  Englanders,  certainly  all  Bostoneers, 
agree  with  nie  in  the  feeling.  I  remember  that  S.  L. 
wrote  me  from  Paris,  that  he  had  felt  more  at  home 
in  London  after  an  hour  than  he  did  in  Paris  after 
sixteen  months  of  her  splendid  literary,  scientific,  and 
aesthetic  hospitalities.  And.  I  do  not  wonder.  Part- 
ly, I  think,  the  charm  is  in  the  language.  The 
London  shopman  meets  so  many  provincials  in  his 
day's  duty,  that  his  language  assimilates  dialects  from 
all,  and  has  much  less  of  what  we  fondly  call  "  Eng- 
lish accent"  than  any  other.  The  rule  works  both 
ways ;  and  he  is  quite  indifferent  whether  you  have 
come  to  him  from  Australia  or  Calcutta  or  Hong 
Kong  or  Boothia  Felix  or  Boston.  His  manner, 
therefore,  makes  you  feel  at  home ;  while,  in  Liver- 
pool, everybody  knew  you  were  from  "  the  other 
side,"  and  addressed  you  accordingly.  Then,  in 
architectural  arrangements,  Boston  is,  not  a  little 
London,  but  a  little  bit  of  London.  I  always  walked 
when  I  had  time,  and  with  little  other  guide  than 
a  little  compass  on  my  watch-guard.  So  I  have 
stumbled  into  streets  in  London,  which  I  could  not 
have  distinguished  from  back  streets  at  the  North 
End  in  Boston.  I  went  into  St.  Anne's  Church,  in 


36  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

Soho,  to  hear  Trench,  one  night,  and  found  a  church 
evidently  built  by  the  half  -  cousin  -  in  -  law,  on  the 
mother's  side,  to  the  architect  who  designed  Brattle 
Street,  or  St.  John's  Church  in  Broadway,  if  not,  in- 
deed, by  the  same  man.  You  go  into  St.  Paul's  to 
see  inscriptions  all  around  you,  which  remind  you 
directly  of  home ;  and  in  most  of  them,  I  think,  the 
American  takes  more  interest  than  the  Londoner. 
The  first  monument  on  the  right,  as  you  go  into  St. 
Paul's  on  the  south  side,  is  a  group  of  two  officers, 
with  their  arms  round  each  other's  waists.  They  are 
"  Gibbs  and  Pakenham,"  "  who  gloriously  fell  in  an 
attempt  to  storm  the  enemy's  ivorJcs  at  New  Orleans." 
To  an  Englishman,  this  is  nothing :  he  does  not  read 
the  inscription.  New  Orleans  is  no  more  to  him  than 
the  Isle  of  Eh£  or  the  Bay  of  Islands.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  monuments  there  that  do  interest  him,  in- 
terest us  quite  as  much.  To  see  Dr.  Johnson  naked, 
with  a  cloth  round  his  loins,  commemorated  to  a 
Christian  nation  as  one  who  had  done  great  things 
ponderibm  verborum  ("  in  the  weight  of  his  words  : "  a 
good  account,  that,  to  give  at  any  day  of  judgment), 
is  a  spectacle  as  grand  to  the  Yankee  as  to  the  Cock- 
nee.  I  had  the  curiosity  to  count  near  Fleet  Street, 
one  day,  the  number  of  signs  which  had  any  direct 
reference  to  America ;  —  which  would  evidently  have 
been  impossible  but  for  Christopher  Columbus.  They 
were  about  one  in  twelve  in  that  particular  region. 
Nor  were  they  specially  gratifying  to  our  aesthetic  or 


ENGLAND.  37 

literary  pride.  I  think  one  was  a  poster,  announcing 
that  some  Saturday  paper  had  stolen  one  of  the 
"New -York  Ledger's"  stories,  of  course  without 
acknowledgment.  The  rest  were  "  Virginia  tobacco," 
"  American  over-shoes,"  "  American  ice,"  and  such 
like.  One  was  "  La  belle  Sauvage,"  whose  name  has 
staid  there,  either  thus  or  as  the  Bell  and  Savage, 
since  she  went  there  as  Pocahontas. 

It  is  funny  to  us  to  see  the  enthusiasm  for  "Ame- 
rican ice."  I  was  in  company  one  evening,  when  a 
lady  rang  for  a  glass  of  water.  When  it  came,  it 
proved  to  have  ice  in  it.  "  Ah  !  you  have  American 
ice.  John,  you  may  bring  me  a  glass."  The  tinkle 
then  struck  somebody's  else  ear.  "  Oh !  have  you 
American  ice  ?  John,  I  will  have  a  glass."  And  so 
it  went  on  till  the  lady  of  the  house  ordered  a  pitcher 
brought  (I  suppose  it  was  a  jug  there),  with  glasses 
enough  to  "treat  all  round." 

I  will  not  ask  the  reader  to  follow  me  to  the  Con- 
tinent, without  some  hints  on  equipage  for  a  flying 
expedition  like  mine,  for  which  he  will  thank  me 
some  day. 

First,  for  a  journal.  Buy  a  compact  scrap-book  (in 
London  they  make  excellent  ones ;  in  Boston,  wretch- 
ed ones);  and  giving  up,  at  the  beginning,  the  idea 
of  writing  much  in  it,  stick  into  it  from  time  to  time, 
with  gummed  wafers  or  some  such  apparatus,  what- 
ever falls  in  your  way  that  will  illustrate  what  you 


38  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  or  EUROPE. 

see.  You  can  .buy  little  photographs  or  prints  of 
buildings,  of  paintings,  or  of  scenery,  which  will  not 
only  be  better  than  any  thing  you  can  draw,  but 
will  be  better  than  any  thing  you  can  recollect 
without  them.  Place  in  the  same  omnium  gatherum 
the  visiting-cards,  the  tickets  to  museums,  the  police- 
men's permits,  the  pressed  flowers,  the  specimens  of 
manufacture,  and  all  the  other  nothings  which  you  are 
else  sure  to  forget  about  or  to  lose  ;  make,  on  rainy 
days  or  quiet  evenings,  a  memorandum  of  the  date 
and  place  they  commemorate,  —  and  you  have  a  jour- 
nal which  almost  keeps  itself.  Do  not  attempt  to 
write  much  in  it :  this  always  ends,  as  far  as  I  have 
observed,  in  saying,  "  I  wish  I  could  describe  this, 
that,  and  the  other ;  but  I  cannot." 

On  the  other  hand,  in  a  letter,  your  eager  wish  to 
convey  to  the  special  correspondent  some  notion  of 
what  is  around  you,  helps  you  all  along  "  to  describe 
the  indescribable."  For  letter-writing,  I  recommend 
a  system,  which,  with  me,  worked  very  well.  I  had 
in  my  breast-pocket  a  little  blotting  -  book,  which 
would  hold  a  quire  of  note-paper.  I  had  a  fountain 
pen,  which  carried  its  own  ink  :  first,  one  of  Prince's 
proteans,  which  are  the  best;  and,  after  a  London 
penmaker  stole  that,  two  of  his  which  he  gave  me  to 
make  good  the  loss.  There  are  a  thousand  times, 
when  you  are  waiting  for  a  train,  or  for  a  supper  or 
dinner  at  an  eating-house,  when  you  do  not  want  to 
go  to  bed,  or  when  a  cab  will  not  come,  when  you 


ENGLAND.  39 

can  write  your  letters,  fresh,  from  the  scene  which  has 
excited  you.  I  know  how  little  chance  there  is  of 
transferring  any  of  the  bloom  of  these  peaches ;  but 
I  think  every  thing  helps  you,  if  you  try  the  experi- 
ment at  the  moment  the  peach  is  before  you. 

After  you  are  among  the  Continental  galleries,  you 
become  an  amateur  artist  in  spite  of  yourself.  In 
that  stage  of  disease,  I  think  a  small  note-book,  two 
inches  by  four,  such  as  a  boy  will  sell  you  under  the 
piazza  at  the  Uffizi,  will  afford  some  comfort  to  the 
patient ;  though,  of  course,  it  is  of  no  permanent  ad- 
vantage to  anybody.  My  dear  doctor,  how  many 
prescriptions  are  ? 

So,  if  you  please,  we  will  go  on  board  the  "  Baron 
Osy"  (the  "  Ankwerk's  package"),  and,  with  a  map  of 
the  Thames,  make  out  St.  George's  in  the  East,  — 
where,  at  this  moment,  the  parishioners  are  fighting 
with  Mr.  Bryan  King,  —  various  sailors'  snug-houses, 
the  Observatory,  and  the  rest,  till  we  are  at  sea; 
the  same  sea  which  Robinson  Crusoe  sailed  upon 
when  he  was  so  sick  and  so  penitent.  "  A  cap-full 
do  you  call  it?"  said  I.  "'Twas  a  terrible  storm." 


40  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 


ANTWERP,   THE  RHINE,   AND    SWITZERLAND. 


ANTWERP,  Oct.  19. 

O  tell  you  of  Antwerp  and  Ru- 
bens, I  don't  know  how  to 
begin.  Our  guide  was  a  very 
sensible  person,  who  made 
these  marvels  culminate.  Mar- 
vels 'they  are  ;  for  not  St. 
Paul's  or  Peterboro'  Cathedral,  nor  Hampton  Court, 
nor  Warwick,  nor  any  of  my  magnitudes  in  Eng- 


ANTWERP,  THE   RHINE,  AND   SWITZERLAND.       41 

land,  had  prepared  me  for  the  size  of  these  churches. 
Still  less  had  any  thing  in  England  given  hint  of 
the  lavish  adornment  which  characterizes  all  of  them, 
and  which  must,  in  some  of  them  indeed,  reach 
the  acme  of  that  matter ;  for  here  the  business  of 
adornment  is  going  on  at  this  hour  more  steadily, 
I  think,  than  in  any  age  since  that  when  (accord- 
ing to  me)  all  men  and  women  of  culture  built  and 
carved  as  now  they  write  and  read,  and  work  worsted. 
Fine  art  is  at  home  here,  even  in  commercial  Ant- 
werp, as  evidently  as  it  was  exotic  in  England.  Some 
merchant  dies,  and  his  wife  wants  to  memorialize  him. 
In  England,  she  puts  up  a  tablet  about  him ;  or,  if  she 
can,  a  statue  of  him,  in  a  frock-coat,  in  some  church. 
Here  she  puts  up  a  statue  of  St.  Paul,  or  St.  Some- 
body else,  in  some  place  where  a  vigilant  eye  dis- 
covers that  a  statue  can  be  added.  In  England  or 
with  us,  the  new  statue,  with  its  high-heeled  boots 
or  swallow-tail,  is  an  abomination.  Here,  in  a  town 
of  fine  art,  it  is  perhaps  extremely  good  ;  at  the 
least,  it  harmonizes  with  the  other  statues  around  it : 
and,  as  you  see  twelve  apostles  or  as  many  prophets, 
it  does  not  occur  to  you  that  the  first  was  set  up  in 
the  sixteenth  century ;  and  the  last,  last  year. 

Their  great  glories,  of  course,  are  Hubens  and 
Vandyke.  Of  Vandyke's  portraits  we  had  seen  mag- 
nificent specimens  in  England.  Here  are  altar-pieces 
and  other  compositions  of  his,  showing  what  was 
wholly  new  to  me,  —  his  power  in  that  line,  specially 


42  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

in  drawing.  Probably  I  had  never  seen,  until  I 
came  to  England,  more  than  one  or  two  real  pictures 
by  Rubens.  But  I  found  I  had  not  misconceived 
what  he  was ;  that  I  had  an  idea  of  the  nature  of  his 
power  ;  only  I  was  not  prepared  for  such  exquisite 
freedom  of  drawing  and  luxury  of  composition  (if 
these  words  mean  any  thing),  nor  for  the  delicacy 
of  many  of  his  conceptions.  I  am  sorry  that  we  see 
copies  of  the  "  Descent  from  the  Cross  "  so  often,  and 
of  other  of  his  pictures  so  little ;  though  this  is,  per- 
haps, truly  called  his  finest  picture.  There  are  a  great 
many  others  far  more  lovely,  and  which  you  hate 
much  more  to  leave.  I  should  like  to-day  to  go  to  see 
them  all  again ;  and  I  am  not  sure  but  I  shall.  They 
are  scattered  through  half  a  dozen  churches ;  in  the 
great  Public  Gallery  of  the  place,  where  are  many  fine 
pictures,  and  many  very  poor ;  and  in  some  private 
collections.  I  hope  what  is  before  me  is  not  going  to 
blot  this  out ;  and  I  cannot  believe  that  it  will. 

Another  fine  art  which  is  in  perfection  here,  and 
which,  as  you  know,  is  quite  in  my  line,  is  the  wood- 
carving.  Gibbons's  wood-carving  in  England  had 
bewitched  me  ;  and  I  quite  won  the  heart  of  my  kind 
guide  through  the  libraries  at  Cambridge  by  my  rap- 
tares,  which  proved  accurate,  about  the  lovely  wooden 
flowers  there.  There  is  nothing  here  more  delicate 
than  that ;  but  they  do  not  think  of  stopping  at  flowers. 
Every  pulpit ;  every  range  of  seats  for  choirs,  deans, 
canons,  or  such  trash ;  every  doorway  which  is  not 


ANTWERP,  THE   RHINE,  AND   SWITZERLAND.       43 

marble  ;  and  every  altar-rail,  —  is  of  this  exquisite 
sculpture,  in  dark  oak,  or  some  similar  material.  This 
art  also  survives,  and  is  going  on  now,  as  before  the 
Antwerp  fury  ;  and  you  see  new  carving,  which, 
without  more  practice  than  mine,  you  cannot  distin- 
guish from  old.  .The  effect  of  all  this,  in  the  im- 
mense vistas  of  these  churches,  is  almost  bewildering. 
No  drawing  gives  you  any  idea  of  it,  because  the 
detail  is  the  essence  of  the  effect ;  and  I  found  no 
photographs  which  answered,  because  the  light  and 
shade  are  so  ill  adapted  for  photographs  in  the  inte- 
rior of  these  large  buildings. 

OCT.  19. — From  Antwerp  to  Cologne  (one  hundred 
and  sixty  miles)  it  is  almost  perfectly  flat,  with  singu- 
larly few  divisions  between  the  fields.  It  is  a  dairy 
country :  but  I  think  the  cattle  must  be  mostly  stall- 
fed  ;  for  we  saw  but  few,  and  the  system  of  fencing 
does  not  provide  for  them.  A  man  who  rode  with 
us  told  me  that  the  properties  were  small,  and  di- 
vided by  ditches,  with  stakes  in  the  bottom ;  but  we 
did  not  see  such. 

After  you  pass  Liege,  the  region  of  the  hot- water 
baths  begins.  Aix-la-Chapelle  was  Aquis  Calidis  of 
the  Romans,  who  had  establishments  there.  We 
just  ran  into  the  town,  but  only  saw  the  new  railroad 
part  of  it.  All  the  country  is  lovely  :  the  guide- 
books say,  like  the  entrance  to  the  Highlands  of 
Scotland  ;  and  I,  like  the  Cheshire  Railroad  from 


44  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

Keene  to  Winchendon  ;  only  you  are  constantly 
crossing  valleys,  which,  are  separated  by  spurs  of 
hills  (forest  of  Ardennes  on  the  right).  Each  of 
these  hills  is  passed  under  by  a  tunnel :  there  are 
nineteen  between  Liege  and  this  place.  I  told  an 
English  girl  in  our  car  that  this  was  Shakspere's 
forest  of  Ardennes.  She  told  her  father  afterwards 
that  I  pronounced  English  very  queerly. 

COLOGNE,  Oct.  19. 

I  believe  I  feel  more  thoroughly  that  I  am  in 
Europe  to-night  than  I  have  all  along  before.  Eng- 
land was  too  completely  home-like :  even  Antwerp, 
yesterday  and  Monday,  with  its  wealth  of  pictures, 
—  "  more  valuable  works  of  fine  art,"  says  Murray 
bravely,  "  than  in  any  other  city  in  the  world," — nei- 
ther gave  so  much  sense  of  Europe  as  the  first  glimpse 
of  the  Rhine,  the  driving  by  the  old  mediaeval  for- 
tifications in  a  cab,  (think  of  that,  spirits  of  Brunehild 
and  Charlemagne  !)  and  at  last  looking  upon  the  Rhine 
from  these  front- windows  of  my  room,  in  one  of  tKose 
very  hotels  which  I  have  seen  more  than  once  in 
panoramas,  and  which  you  will  remember  both  in  the 
"Initials"  and  in  the  Tautphceus's  last  novel,  whose 
name  I  have  forgotten.  Mark  me,  I  have  not'  seen 
Cologne  yet;  I  believe  I  always  write  from  places  be- 
fore seeing  them  :  but  I  have  had  these  glimpses  of  it. 
Then  I  have  been  down  to  supper  in  a  hotel  eating- 
room  so  exactly  like  the  theatre  and  the  "  Initials " 


ANTWERP,  THE   RHINE,  AND   SWITZERLAND.       45 

both,  with  the  different  tables;  the  John-Bull  ideal 
and  his  typical  wife,  who  had  left  "  a  small  box," 
which  proved  to  be  a  large  band-box,  in  the  steam- 
boat; the  foreign  lady  with  a  small  Esquimaux  dog, 
which  had  to  be  tied  to  a  chair  as  she  ate,  —  so  exactly 
like  a  book,  or  like  the  theatre,  I  say,  that,  as  so  often 
on  this  expedition,  I  longed  to  scream.  To-morrow, 
I  will  tell- you  what  Kolii  looks  like.  Each  of  us  has 
in  our  dressing-cases  an  unopened  bottle  of  eau  de 
Cologne,  which  we  have  lugged  all  the  way  from  our 
dear  Boston  Bay. 

Last  night  I  went  to  the  real  theatre,  —  Theatre 
Royal,  Anvers,  —  hoping  to  pick  up  some  French ;  in 
which,  more  or  less,  I  succeeded.  Was  it  at  Anvers 
or  Bruxelles  that  Charlotte  Bronte  saw  Rachel  ?  Let 
me  tell  you,  in  passing,  that  "  Antwerp "  is  only 
short  for  "On  the  wharf;"  the  leading  peculiarity 
of  Dutch  and  Flemish  being  the  sinking  th,  Welsh 
fashion,  into  t.  I  have  not  yet  learned  to  talk  it, 
but  read  the  signs  quite  well.  Hunden  ut  den  Gofs 
Tempeln  is  the  best  I  saw,  —  "  Hounds  out  of 
God's  temple  ; "  i.e.,  "  No  dogs  permitted  to  enter." 
To  return  to  my  love  of  a  theatre  in  the  commercial 
capital  of  the  kingdom  of  Bas  Cour.  I  had  vainly 
tried  to  get  the  play  to  read.  It  was  a  comic  opera 
called  "  Le  Songe  d'une  Nuit  d'Et£  ;  which,  you  will 
observe,  means  "  Midsummer  Night's  Dream."  Was 
not  it  funny,  that  to  me,  so  fresh  from  Richmond 
Hill,  Hampton  Court,  and  all  its  pictures  of  Elizabeth, 


46  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

and  from  Stratford  itself,  there  should  be  produced 
this  modern  French  play,  which  has  nothing  about 
"Midsummer  Night's  Dream"  in  it,  but  introduces 
Shakspere  (constantly  called  William  Shukspeer 
by  the  performers),  Queen  Elizabeth,  Sir  John  Fal- 
staff,  and  Lord  Latimer  (a  young  gallant  fighting 
duels  about  the  court),  as  four  people  intimate  with 
each  other,  and  entangled  in  the  most  absurd  plot  ? 
The  second  act  was  actually  at  Richmond  Terrace, 
where  I  had  been  last  Saturday ;  and  Shakspere 
and  Falstaff  came  up  the  Thames  in  a  boat  to  the 
scene  of  action.  The  Queen  Elizabeth  was  admira- 
bly got  up,  the  Shakspere  not  so  well.  I  followed 
the  plot  along  well  enough  as  in  an  Italian  opera,  but 
could  only  make  out  the  animated  staccato  dialogues. 
After  the  second  act,  there  was  another  performance, 
even  more  curious.  All  the  regular  men- subscribers 
to  the  theatre  withdrew  into  the  saloon,  and  all  the 
other  men,  I  included,  with  them ;  and  there  the  sub- 
scribers faisaient  ballotage  sur  les  debutants  —  which 
means  "voted  by  ballot "  — which  of  six  debutants  in 
comic  opera  should  be  engaged.  The  roll  was  called 
of  some  four  hundred  subscribers'  names.  Three  gen- 
tlemanly-looking pundits  presided  at  an  urn ;  and,  as 
the  people  were  called,  they  voted.  The  debutants 
are  not  necessarily  what  we  call  by  that  name ;  but 
they  are  candidates  for  engagements  here.  A  fort- 
night ago,  a  majority  of  the  subscribers  voted  against 
the  whole  set  of  candidates  for  the  Grand  Opera, 


ANTWERP,  THE   RHINE,  AND    SWITZERLAND.       47 

who  had  been  performing  on  trial ;  and  the  manager 
had  to  dismiss  them,  and  get  another  set.  It  was 
really  quite  an  animating  scene  ;  these  poor  Bas-Cour 
people  on  t'  wharf  not  having  much  other  voting  to 
do,  nor  much  to  think  of  any  sort.  I  think  it  must 
vastly  improve  the  acting  also.  Even  in  its  minutise, 
the  play  of  last  night  was  'performed  with  great 
spirit;  and  I  was  very  glad  I  went. 

COBLENTZ,  Oct.  21,  1859. 

Are  not  these  names  amazing  ?  I  begin  to  be  con- 
verted, and  to  have  a  realizing  sense  that  this  is  Eu- 
rope indeed.  We  went  the  round  of  the  great 
marvels  of  Cologne ;  and  in  the  evening,  by  way  of 
contrast  with  the  Cathedral,  we  went  to  a  very  funny 
puppet-theatre,  —  clear  German  fun.  The  Cathedral 
is  magnificent  indeed.  But  I  will  own,  plumply,  that 
I  am  not  pleased  to  the  full  with  any  of  the  resto- 
rations which  we  see,  and  of  which  this  is  chief.  It 
savors  of  white  -  washing  sepulchres.  In  Strauss's 
celebrated  satire,  called  the  "  Life  of  Julian,"  under 
the  veil  of  a  life  of  the  Apostate,  he  wrote  a  very 
witty  attack  on  the  King  of  Prussia.  The  effort  of 
Julian  to  rebuild  the  Jewish  temples  was  Frederick 
William's  effort  to  rebuild  this  cathedral  for  a  wor- 
ship for  which  he  cared  no  more  than  Julian  did  for 
the  Jews.  Now,  the  wit  of  it  is,  simply,  that  it  is 
true  :  and,  as  you.  give  a  coppery  pistareen  to  the 
respectable  gentleman  with  a  silver  plate  who  is 


48  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  or  EUROPE. 

authorized  by  the  Dom-gebau  gesellschaft  to  ask  your 
assistance  in  their  enterprise,  you  have  a  painful  feel- 
ing, that,  up  to  a  certain  point,  the  edifice  got  itself 
built  by  the  natural  conditions  of  society,  and,  to  a 
certain  extent,  by  men's  wishing  to  glorify  God ;  while 
this  pistareen  and  the  King  of  Bavaria's  windows,  and 
so  on,  are  prompted  by  a  wish  to  clear  things  up,  as 
when  one  puts  one's  study  in  order,  and  by  another 
wish  to  produce  a  good  archaeological  specimen. 

Now,  at  Antwerp,  it  is  not  so.  The  worship  is 
going  on  there  in  very  real  fashion.  The  city  is  rich, 
and  the  money  comes  in  for  the  statues  and  windows 
and  the  rest  more  readily  than  with  us  for  one-legged 
General  Warrens,  or  fairs  for  Washington  on  horse- 
back. Pardon  this  digression.  Of  the  Cathedral,  the 
glory  now  is  in  the  part  farthest  from  you  as  you  sit 
at  breakfast.*  It  will  be  the  chancel  of  the  finished 
building,  and  is  complete.  It  is,  I  think,  a  peculia- 
rity of  these  Gothic  churches  of  the  Rhine,  that  the 
chancel  is  finished  in  this  semicircular  form.  To 
this  here  is  added  the  peculiarity,  that  the  windows, 
enormously  high,  are  each  triple  and  bowed.  Fill 
all  the  facets  (there  is  no  other  word)  with  the  richest 
of  stained  glass  ;  let  the  columns  which  part  them, 
and  which  blend  in  with  the  columns  of  the  nave, 
rise  so  high,  that,  wherever  you  stand,  you  throw 
back  your  neck  as  in  looking  for  the  corona  of  the 

*  Farthest  from  the  spectator  in  Schulze's  print  of  the  Cathedral. 


ANTWERP,  THE   RHINE,  AND   SWITZERLAND.       49 

late  auroras,  —  and  you  get  the  idea  of  the  present 
magnificence  of  the  Koln  Dom.  It  is  not  in  its  extent 
(when  it  is  done,  it  will  be  only  five  hundred  and  fifty 
feet  long,  and  there  is  no  view  of  it  of  half  that 
length ;  while  the  Wharfmen's  is  five  hundred,  and 
is  finished) ;  but  it  is  in  the  exquisite  interweaving  of 
groining  and  of  columns  which  results  in  this  semi- 
circular, diamond-faceted,  in  the  end. 

We  saw  the  skulls  of  the  wise  men,  and  the  gold 
and  jewelled  sarcophagus  in  which  they  lie,  and  the 
other  jewelry  of  the  establishment.  The  gold  is  gold, 
but  the  establishment  is  a  sham  :  it  was  not  so  at 
Antwerp. 

We  had  more  of  Rubens  at  Cologne,  —  a  good  pub- 
lic gallery,  and  a  charming  private  collection  of  pictures 
of  a  M.  Meyer  thrown  open  very  courteously  to  stran- 
gers. But  I  do  not  think  I  shall  try  to  write  to  you 
about  pictures.  You  cannot  describe  them ;  and  what 
is  the  use  of  saying  you  cannot  ?  When  I  come  home, 
we  will  go  to  Cambridge,  and  ask  Mr.  Thies  to  show 
us  the  Gray  engravings  of  the  paintings  I  have  seen. 
I  want  especially  to  show  you  the  Vandykes ;  not  the 
portraits  so  much  as  the  composition  :  for  Vandyke 
felt  his  pictures  as  Rubens  did  not  his,  I  think ;  and, 
though  the  color  is  not  so  marvellous,  there  is  a 
sympathetic  touch  about  them  which  the  other  never 
has.  In  these  galleries,  again,  there  are,  of  course, 
galore  of  Teniers,  Gerard  Dow,  Ostade,  and  such 
like,  increasing  vastly  your  respect  for  that  kind. 

4 


50 


Con-descend — which,  is  to  say,  descend — with  me, 
though  the  steps  be  like  the  descent  of  Ehrenbreit- 
stein  which  I  made  an  hour  since,  from  Rubens  and 
Vandyke  to  the  puppet-show,  —  clear  German.  A 
large  room,  with  benches  for  a  hundred  children  or 
less,  who  laughed  as  if  they  would  die  ;  reserved 
seats  for  gentry  like  us,  who  paid  ten  cents  each  for 
admission ;  scenery  nicely  painted  close  in  front,  and 
a  screen  seven  feet  high  from  the  ground,  concealing 
the  foot-lights.  Behind  this  screen  were  improvisa- 
tori,  who  held  up  on  wires  the  puppet  performers,  — 
one  wire  for  the  body ;  one  to  work  the  right  arm  for 
very  funny  gestures.  No  floor  to  the  stage,  you  see ; 
but  the  screen  so  high,  that  you  did  not  miss  it.  A 
dozen  houses  in  the  scenes,  with  practicable  doors  from 
which  these  caricatured  puppets  emerged,  and  held 
conversation  in  German,  at  which  people  laughed 
like  mad,  to  me  almost  wholly  unintelligible ;  but  we 
laughed  from  sympathy.  Occasionally,  of  course, 
they  fought  with  great  applause.  The  audience  was 
as  funny  to  see  as  the  stage-play ;  but  the  whole 
was  very  characteristic. 

It  was  very  droll,  the  changing  language  again 
entirely  and  coinage,  after  two  days'  experience  of 
French  and  francs.  We  did  not  get  along  without 
our  dragoman's  assistance  yesterday ;  but  to-day  I 
have  been  amazed  to  see  how  easy  the  language 
grows.  I  think  in  a  fortnight  I  should  talk  German 
better  than  I  talk  French.  On  the  steamboat  this 


ANTWERP,  THE   RHINE,  AND   SWITZERLAND.       51 

afternoon,  after  a  day's  soaking  in  the  sprech,  I  found 
I  carried  on  a  very  edifying  conversation  with  the 
captain,  who  had  no  English  or  French. 

The  little  pictures  we  are  apt  to  see  are  but  poor 
suggestions  of  the  Cologne  Cathedral :  its  peculiar 
distinction  being,  that  it  is  large  ;  and  theirs,  that 
they  are  small.  We  made  a  charming  visit  at  the 
old  Church  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  —  old  as 
the  hills,  but  more  like  our  idea  of  a  church,  and 
what  is  wanted  in  a  church,  than  any  thing  we  have 
seen.  Here  is  Rubens's  "  Crucifixion  of  St.  Peter ;  " 
the  subject  painful,  of  course,  but  the  picture  mar- 
vellous. There  is  also  a  copy  of  it  which  they  used 
to  hang  in  front  of  it  for  concealment.  As  it  is,  the 
Rubens  is  only  turned  outward  for  a  fee ;  another 
picture  having  taken  the  place  of  the  copy.^  The 
beauty  of  the  carvings  of  the  "  Stations  of  Christ," 
in  the  gallery  which  leads  to  this  church,  surprised 
me.  They  were  in  plaster,  or  some  such,  not  the 
size  of  life  ;  but  the  groups  were  admirably  con- 
ceived. So  were  some  ivory  carvings  which  we 
afterwards  saw  at  Mr.  Weyer's  admirable  gallery. 

This  gallery  is  very  prettily  built.  A  double  row 
of  Saracenic  columns  supports*  a  roof  in  the  middle  of 
a  long  hall :  but  the  real  roof  of  glass  is  above  this, 
and  extends  beyond  it,  on  each  side,  to  the  walls  on 
which  the  pictures  hang ;  so  that  you  have  the  ver- 
tical light,  without  even  seeing  the  glass  through 
which  it  comes. 


52  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

COBLENTZ,    Oct.   20. 

Here  is  a  specimen  of  an  extra  from  a  German 
newspaper.  Let  it  serv-e  as  the  connection  between 
this  history  and  the  great  history  of  the  times. 

This  is  the  whole  of  it  :  — 


doblet^er  2eitung 
18,  ©fctbr,  1859, 


r*  JBepesc&e  tier  Coblenjer 

|)ar  10,  tflontag,  17.  ODkt., 
9  Hljr  ^benfts.    i§eute  tourbe  in 
trcr    JFrietens  - 
JTrankreid)  unb 
unter^icljnet. 


Ueranttoortltcfjcr  -EetJactmr:  (&. 

cfje  33uc|)tiruckErci,  i&Ijemstrasse-  11, 


But  how  shall  I  tell  your  about  the  Rhine  and 
Ehrenbreitstein  ?  To  see  the  river,  we  selected  the 
damp-skiff,  which  is  slow,  instead  of  the  railroad, 
which  is  fast.  River-steamboat  travelling  is  the  per- 
fection of  voyage  everywhere  :  what  shall  one  say 
when  it  is  on  the  Rhine  ? 

From  8.15  to  4.15  we  came  only  forty-five  miles 
to  this  place.  Current  very  fast  ;  river  low  beyond 


ANTWERP,  THE  RHINE,  AND  SWITZERLAND.       53 

precedent ;  sky  overcast,  without  rain.  Oh,  how 
lovely  it  is  !  After  Bonn,  the  Highlands  of  the 
Seven  Mountains — Drachenfels,  Rolandseck,  and  that 
set  —  begin,  just  as  two  or  three  of  our  West-Point 
Mountains  will  look  when  the  wood  is  all  gone,  and 
the  Longworths  of  that  day  have  covered  their  sides 
with  Catawba.  I  ought  not  to  say  this,  however, 
without  going  back  to  the  hour  of  sunset,  which  I 
spent  last  night  in  the  belvedere  on  top  of  our  hotel, 
looking  on  the  Rhine,  its  boats,  its  bridges,  and  on 
the  dying  light  and  gathering  lanthorns,  as,  a  thou- 
sand years  hence,  the  New  Zealander,  tired  of  sketch- 
ing ruins,  will  sit  in  a  belvedere  on  Water  Street  in 
Hartford,  and  look  up  on  the  flow  of  the  river  there. 
The  feeling  of  the  two  places  is  the  same ;  the  flow 
is  the  same ;  the  boating  not  quite  the  same,  but 
like. 

The  color  of  the  forests,  which  begin  to  appear  on 
the  west  side  of  the  river  after  you  pass  the  Seven 
Mountains,  is  just  that  of  our  woods  where  there  is 
no  maple.  The  yellows  are  as  brilliant,  the  green 
(without  evergreen)  even  more  so  ;  and  you  con- 
stantly feel  that  you  have  seen  the  same  at  home. 
But  the  east  side,  more  sunny  for  some  reason  which 
I  do  not  quite  verstehen,  is  all  vine,  —  all  but  what  is 
bare  rocks  or  house  or  road  or  ruin.  You  know  how 
they  grow,  tied  to  little  sticks,  —  terraces  where  they 
can  terrace  up  the  volcanic  rock,  steeper  than  West 
Rock  in  places,  or  Cat  Hole ;  and,  where  they  can- 


54  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

not  terrace,  the  vines  growing  in  baskets,  with,  stone 
steps  cut  up  the  cliff,  —  stairways  where  they  ascend 
to  pick.  Give  me  the  most  of  a  day  of  this,  with 
Nonnenwerth,  Rolandseck,  Rheinseck,  and  so  forth, 
thrown  in ;  enough  ballad-books  and  legend-books 
to  refresh  lagging  memories  ;  a  nice  picture-book- 
looking  old  man  of  fifty,  who  nicht  verstand  Franzose, 
but  potuit  dicere  Latine  ut  plures  gentes  literati,  and 
with  whom  we  dicebamus  Latine  all  the  way  by 
Rolandseck ;  he  traducens  the  German  ballad  into 
Latinam  linguam,  which  we  read  in  the  German, 
over  his  shoulder,  from  his  guide-book,  as  he  did 
so,  —  give  me,  I  say,  a  day  of  this,  instead  of  three 
miserable  pages  weighing  four  and  a  half  grammes 
of  wetted  ink  on  thin  paper,  and  you  will  see  and 
know  what  I  saw  and  knew  till  I  saw  Ehrenbreit- 
stein. 

Ehrenbreitstein  is  opposite  this  place.  We  stopped 
at  the  Hotel  am  Reisen  (the  Giants'  Hotel),  left  our 
trunks,  walked  across  the  bridge  and  up  the  laborious 
way  to  the  fortifications,  or  rather  through  them  ; 
satisfying  the  guards  on  duty  with  two  and  a  half 
groscheii  for  each  of  us,  so  variable  are  these  maiden 
fortresses,  —  uncertain,  coy,  and  hard  to  please,  in 
time  of  war ;  but,  in  peace,  so  easily  sapped  and 
won.  Through  arch,  over  moat,  along  inclined 
planes,  and  the  rest,  you  ascend  four  hundred  feet, 
and  come  out  on  a  gallery,  terrace,  parapet  I  sup- 
pose it  is,  right  above  the  Rhine.  The  Moselle 


ANTWERP,  THE   RHINE,  AND   SWITZERLAND.       55 

flows  in  opposite.  Coblentz  (is  not  its  name  Conflu- 
entia  Fluviorum  ?)  is  between ;  —  Entre  Rios,  as  they 
say  in  South  America ;  eastward,  Nassau ;  northward, 
Rhenish  Prussia  and  Belgium;  westward,  Belgium, 
and  even  France;  and,  south  of  it,  this  German 
Coblentz.  But  it  was  not  political  geography,  but 
paradisiacal  garden  beauty,  that  in  the  sunset  glow 
one  looked  upon,  and  remembers.  .  .  . 

Marvellous  as  all  the  Rhine  is,  I  think  this  view 
stands  out  as  the  most  marvellous.  You  ascend  by 
inclined  planes  cut  in  the  rock  to  this  very  highest 
terrace  of  the  fortress,  —  the  broad  stone  of  Honor 
itself.  A  miserable  recruit  takes  you  in  charge,  and 
leads  you  from  terrace  to  terrace  ;  where,  but  for  stout 
iron  railings,  you  might  fall  never  so  far  below.  He 
points  out  all  the  posts  of  these  different  States,  and 
even  tells  .you  that  Luxembourg  is  French  territory ; 
but  the  real  glory  of  it  is,  that  the  sun  is  setting 
behind  the  western  mountains.  As  you  look,  the 
Rhine  and  Moselle  begin  to  fade  away  in  the  misty 
light  he  leaves  behind  him,  —  mist  and  light  all 
the  more  glorious  that  you  are  surrounded  by  all 
the  colors  of  an  Indian  summer  ;  for  on  the  face  of 
Ehrenbreitstein  they  have  something,  I  know  not 
what,  which  even  vies  with  the  brilliancy  of  our 
sumach.  Indeed,  I  will  say  here  of  all  the  coloring 
of  the  Rhine  as  we  saw  it,  that,  if  you  remember 
sundry  Rhine  views  which  different  travellers  have 


56  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  or  EUROPE. 

brought  home  to  us,  you  have  thought  very  likely,  like 
me,  that  their  colors  both  of  yellow  and  green  were 
intensely  exaggerated  for  the  sake  of  a  painter's  effect 
of  contrast.  But  it  is  not  so.  At  this  season,  the 
vine  changes  to  a  yellow  as  brilliant  as  our  most 
brilliant  grape-leaves  or  birches ;  the  blue  of  the  sky 
is  equally  marked;  and  we  constantly  caught  our- 
selves saying,  "  How  like  a  Swiss  water-color  !  "  I 
think  some  of  these  little  pictures  are  as  good  repre- 
sentations of  actual  scenery  as  I  have  ever  seen. 

But,  as  I  say,  the  sunset  would  fade  away.  I 
walked  pensive  down,  and  we  crossed  the  funny 
bridge  of  boats,  and  paid  funny  kreutzers  at  the 
funny  little  toll-house,  quite  resolved  to  write  another 
"  Childe-Harold  "  verse  to  those  from  Byron  :  but 
when  we  arrived  at  the  Hotel  des  Geants,  Hotel  am 
Reisen,  (and  to  what  other  could  we  have  gone  ?)  the 
cotelettes  were  ready,  and  the  appetit  aussi;  and  we 
descended  to  other  cares,  and  the  verses  never  came. 

Oct.   22.  —  COBLENTZ   TO   BlNGEN. 

It  has  been  a  charming  sail,  though  the  weather 
has  been  cold.  I  understand  now  why  people  always 
compare  the  Khine  and  the  Hudson;  but  there  is 
ten  times  as  much  of  this  beautiful  mountain-pass 
scenery  here  as  there.  This  I  feel  now,  being  only 
three  months  or  thereabouts  from  the  same  sail  there. 

[As  I  look  over  these  notes,  I  am  struck  with  the 
truth  of  James  Lowell's  words  :  — 


ANTWERP,  THE  RHINE,  AND   SWITZERLAND.       57 

"  Nature  is  not  the  same  in  America,  and  perhaps 
never  will  be,  as  in  lands  where  man  has  mingled 
his  being  with  hers  for  countless  centuries;  where 
every  field  is  steeped  in  history,  every  crag  is  ivied 
with  legend,  and  the  whole  atmosphere  of  thought  is 
hazy  with  the  Indian  summer  of  tradition."] 

At  every  turn  of  the  river,  on  the  Rhine,  there  is 
a  ruin,  a  profile,  a  legend,  a  ballad,  or  a  joke.  But 
I  spare  my  faithful  readers  my  sketches  or  my  rap- 
tures ;  though  there  is  a  temptation  to  put  in  parallel 
columns  Schiller's  ballad  of  the  Toggenburg,  and  our 
schoolmaster  -  friend's  Latin  version  of  it  which  he 
made  for  our  edification  (and  indeed  he  succeeded), 
quite  unconscious  that  we  knew  it  by  heart,  and  were 
reading  over  his  shoulder.  Of  the  castles  of  the  t\\*o 
brothers  who  fell  in  love  with  the  same  lady,  fought 
and  died,  he  said,  "  Unus  in  pugna  mortuus  est,  unus 
a  dolore."  "We  have  been  talking  four  languages  in 
about  equal  proportion  to-day. 

Bingen  is  a  sweet  little  village,  where  the  Rhine 
begins  to  open  its  way  through  the  mass  of  basaltic 
rock,  of  which  the  Lurlei  is  the  boldest  precipice. 
Looking  back  as  the  boat  rounds  the  precipice,  they 
affect  to  show  a  profile  of  Napoleon  I. ;  which  every- 
body looked  for,  and  I,  to  my  satisfaction,  found. 
But  it  wears  a  bushy  moustache.  Did  he  ever  wear 
any? 

Bingen  is  at  the  head  of  the  picturesque  scenery  of 


58  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

the  Rhine.  We  should  have  gladly  kept  on  by  the 
boat  to  Mayence,  as  we  intended  to :  but  the  water 
was  so  low,  that  we  had  already  changed  for  a  smaller 
boat  at  Pfalz  the  pretty  and  curious  old  palatine's 
tower  in  the  Rhine  ;  and  at  seven  o'clock,  therefore 
(long  after  dark),  we  stopped  for  the.  night  at  the 
Victoria  Hotel  at  Bingen. 


Oct.  23.  —  BINGEN  TO  MAYENCE. 

We  were  up  early  to  take  the  morning  train  for 
Mayence;  which  is  a  short  "  sabbath-day's  journey," 
if  you  count  by  time.  I  ran  down  to  the  shore  to  see 
Bishop  Hatto's  Tower, ; —  the  Mouse  Tower. 

"  I'll  go  to  my  tower  on  the  Rhine,"  replied  he; 
"  'Tis  the  strongest  place  in  all  Germany: 
The  walls  are  high  and  the  shores  are  steep, 
And  the  river  is  near  and  the  water  deep." 

I  suppose  I  knew  that  ballad  by  heart  as  soon  as 
I  knew  any  verse  outside  of  Mother  Goose.  It  looks 
just  like  the  pictures :  how  often  we  say  that  in  a 
world  turned  up-side  down  !  They  have  somewhat 
refitted  it,  and  a  flag  now  waves  upon  it  as  a  signal 
for  the  very  difficult  pilotage  of  the  rapid  river; 
and  so  it  stands  as  if  did  when  — 

"  He  listened  and  looked,  —  it  was  only  the  cat: 
But  the  bishop  he  grew  the  more  fearful  for  that ; 
For  she  sat  screaming,  mad  with  fear, 
At  the  army  of  rats  that  were  drawing  near. 


ANTWERP,  THE  RHINE,  AND   SWITZERLAND.        59 

For  they  have  swum  over  the  river  so  deep, 
And  they  have  climbed  the  shores  so  steep; 
And  up  the  tower  their  way  is  bent, 
To  do  the  work  for  which  they  were  sent. 

They  are  not  to  be  told  by  the  dozen  or  score ; 
By  thousands  they  come,  and  by  myriads  and  more  : 
Such  numbers  had  never  been  heard  of  before  ; 
Such  a  judgment  had  never  been  witnessed  of  yore. 

Down  on  his  knees  the  bishop  fell, 

And  faster  and  faster  his  beads  did  he  tell, 

As  louder  and  louder,  drawing  near, 

The  sound  of  their  teeth  from  without  he  could  hear. 

And  in  at  the  windows  and  in  at  the  door, 
And  through  the  walls,  helter-skelter  they  pour; , 
And  down  from  the  ceiling  and  up  through  the  floor, 
From  the  right  and  the  left,  from  behind  and  before, 
From  within  and  without,  from  above  and  below; 
And  all  at  once  to  the  bishop  they  go. 

They  Have  whetted  their  teeth  against  the  stones  ;     • 
And  now  they  pick  the  bishop's  bones: 
They  gnawed  his  flesh  from  every  limb; 
"  For  they  were  sent  to  do  judgment  on  him  !  " 

A  quick  ride  carried  us  into  Mayence  in  less  than 
an  hour.  It  is  fortified,  and  we  could  see  on  the 
buildings  the  marks  of  shot  left  from  old  times. 

We  went  to  service  in  the  Cathedral,  which  had 
been  left  well-nigh  a  ruin  by  the  French  troops,  who 
used  it  as  some  sort  of  a  storehouse ;  and  at  has 
not  been  fully  restored.  The  proportions  are  im- 
mense ;  but  it  is  unsatisfactory  after  what  we  have 
seen.  The  outer  dome  is  modern,  I  believe ;  cer- 
tainly very  fine. 


60  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

Oct.  23,  24.  —  MAYENCE. 

The  town,  .  like  all  these  towns,  is  charmingly 
quaint;  the  Hotel  du  Rhin,  like  all  these  inns, 
charmingly  comfortable :  but  we  had  to  rise  early, 
and  dress  by  candle-light,  that  we  might  start  early 
enough  for  the  long  day's  ride  to  Lucerne. 

The  palatinate,  now  Darmstadt  arid  Rhenish 
Bavaria,  is  as  flat  as  Holland  or  Cambridgeport.  It 
is  cultivated  like  a  garden ;  and  here,  for  the  first 
time,  we  saw  the  people  gathering  grapes.  As  soon 
as  we  came  to  Ludwigs-hafen,  the  railroad  station 
where  the  Bavarian  lines  begin,  we  saw,  even  in 
a  station,  poor  old  Ludwig's  good  taste.  It  was  a 
large  -building,  of  fine  proportions,  built  with  light 
carvings  for  its  verandah  support,  as  if  for  a  festival, 
and  the  columns  overgrown  with  vines.  In  Mayence 
and  its  Prussian  neighborhood,  the  toll-gates,  sentry- 
boxes,  et  id  genus  omne,  are  striped  black  and  white;  in 
Darmstadt,  red  and  white ;  in  the  Bavarian  Palatinate, 
blue  and  white ;  in  France,  not  at  all :  so  that  you 
have  a  constant  sign  of  the  allegiance  which  you 
owe. 

STRASBURG,  Oct.  24. 

But,  even  already,  the  Rhine  is  a  matter  of  this 
morning,  and  Ehrenbreitstein  a  wonder  of  day  be- 
fore yesterday.  I  am  finishing  this  in  Strasburg; 
where,  it  is  true,  I  could  see  the  Rhine,  if  I  sought 
it ;  but  where  I  have  seen  the  Cathedral.  "We  had 


ANTWERP,  THE   RHINE,  AND   SWITZERLAND.        61 


not  meant  to  stop  here,  but  were  to  have  gone  from 
Mayence  to  Lucerne  in  a  day.  Think  of  that,  shade 
of  Julius  Caesar,  who  took  one  liber  to  describe  how 
minus  Helvetii,  id  quod  constituerint,  potuerunt  redire 
domum!  But  the  nineteenth  century  failed  in  the 
same  way  as  the  Helvetii  did,  and  at  this  city  we 
failed  to  connect  by  dix  minutes. 

Half  these  dix  minutes 
we  lost  outside  of  this 
town,  in  sight  of  the  high- 
est spire  in  the  world.  I 
occupied  myself  with  a 
sketch  of  that  spire,  which 
you  will  find  preserved  in 
ink  on  the  back  of  this 
sheet.  Having  four  hours 
to  wait  for  our  train,  we 
have  now  seen  the  reality 
without,  and  yet  more 
marvellous  within ;  and  I 
have  seen  nothing  architectural  in  Europe,  for  which 
I  would  not  rather  lose  the  memory.  It  is  the 
grandest  of  the  Gothic  cathedrals,  if  Peterborough, 
Antwerp,  Cologne,  and  this,  give  me  right  to  speak 
of  them.  The  spire  in  my  picture  rises  beyond 
a  tower  whose  spire  was  never  any  more  finished 
than  that  of  Brattle  Street.  The  whole  is  open 
to  the  sky;  and  when  a  person,  ascending,  falls 
from  the  ladder,  he  tumbles  out  of  the  steeple 


62  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

into  the  street.  I  need  not  say  that  we  did  not 
ascend.  The  little  pillars,  flying  buttresses  of  the 
smallest  type,  which  surround  the  stone-work,  are 
not  larger  than  a  child's  arm ;  and  the  similitude 
which  some  one  has  made,  that  a  veil  of  stone  has 
been  thrown  over  the  building,  really  does  not  seem 
exaggerated.  All  this  is  exquisite  and  beautiful ; 
but  it  is  not  till  you  go .  in  that  it  is  all  intensely 
solemn.  The  columns  are  enormous ;  but  the  build- 
ing so  much  more  enormous,  and  the  nave  so  high, 
that  they  are  nothing.  The  whole  light  is  through 
stained  windows,  some  eight  centuries  old.  Service 
was  going  on  at  the  high  altar ;  an  immense  organ, 
half  down  the  nave,  solemnly  assisting.  No  tricky 
ornament,  but  everywhere  calm  sculpture.  Almost 
no  paintings,  —  scarce  light  enough  for  them,  in- 
deed ;  but  those  on  the  glass  supplying  any  want 
of  color,  and  the  statues  any  want  of  pathos.  A 
suite  of  steps  leads  up,  as  in  a  heathen  temple,  to  the 
high  altar.  The  architecture  around  this  is  of  the 
greatest  dignity  or  grandeur ;  and  the  fact  that  a 
service  with  music  was  passing  gave  us  the  echoes, 
the  sentiment,  the  impression  universal,  without  which 
the  church  would  have  seemed  dark  and  cold. 

In  one  of  the  side-chapels,  in  a  gallery,  you  see  a 
man,  in  the  costume  of  the  middle  ages,  looking  at  a 
statue  on  a  column.  I  thought,  in  the  dimness,  that 
he  was  a  real  man ;  but  he  was  the  statue  of  Erwin 
von  Steinbach  the  architect,  looking  at  the  statue 


ANTWERP,  THE  RHINE,  AND   SWITZERLAND.       63 

of  his  daughter.  While  he  lived,  she  carved  the 
statues  for  the  Cathedral :  when  he  died,  they  made 
her  the  architect  in  his  place,  and  she  finished  it.  Is 
not  that  as  it  should  be  ?  Like  other  things,  I  sup- 
pose the  building  has  suffered  from  time :  but  the 
stone  is  very  hard,  so  that  it  has  not  suffered  much ; 
and  it  has  been  completely  restored,  long  enough  ago 
not  to  look  restored. 

Again  the  human  side  appears  in  the  clock,  which 
was  renewed  in  1842  by  an  artist  here.  It  is  an 
immense  work,  thirty  or  more  feet  high.  Above, 
a  cock  flaps  his  wings,  and  crows  at  fixed  times ;  a 
child  walks  out  and  strikes  the  quarter,  a  youth  the 
half,  an  old  man  the  three-quarters,  and  death  the 
hour.  We  saw  the  youth,  walking  very  naturally. 
An  angel  below  strikes  at  the  same  time.  By  im- 
mense wheel -work,  every  chronological  epoch  is 
shown,  —  epacts,  golden  letters,  and  every  thing  ec- 
clesiastical. The  moon  appears  of  her  own  age ;  a 
globe  with  the  world  revolves,  so  as  to  show  how 
the  time  is  everywhere.  On  Monday,  La  Lune  is  in 
her  chariot,  because  it  is  Lundi ;  Mardi,  Mars  ap- 
pears in  his;  and  so  of  the  rest.  The  works  are 
wound  up  once  a  year. 

[From  a  Letter.] 

Is  not  it  nice  that  they  made  Erwin  von  Stein- 
bach's  daughter  architect  after  he  died,  and  that  she 
made  the  statues  while  he  built  the  church  ?  And 


64  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  or  EUROPE. 

these  statues  are  not  horrid  old  middle-agey  looking 
things,  but  very  pretty,  as  I  do  not  doubt  she  was. 
Do  you  remember  about  the  clock,  —  the  cock  that 
flaps,  the  figures  that  strike,  the  chariots  that  ride, 
and  so  on,  when  one  change  and  another  comes  on  ? 
All  this  is  now  in  great  feather ;  an  artist  having 
constructed  a  new  one,  which  was  put  up  a  few  years 
ago.  After  we  had  seen  this,  I,  in  the  spirit  of  an 
old  member  of  Brattle-street  Church,  of  whom  Dr. 
Lothrop  will  tell  you,*  asked  where  the  old  clock 
was.  I  found,  to  my  joy,  that  it  was  preserved  in 
a  sort  of  museum  opposite,  where  they  keep  all 
sorts  of  antiques  connected  with  the  church  and  the 
town  in  the  old  N6tre  Dame,  which  they  left  when 
the  new  church  was  built  in  the  fourteenth  century. 
Their  sculptures  here  actually  run  back  to  the  heathen 
idols  of  their  ancestors.  Here,  too,  were  casts  of 
almost  all  the  statues  in  the  church ;  and  the  like- 
nesses of  the  Sabrina  who  carved  them  are  pointed 
out  tenderly. 

You  know,  that,  in  the  "  Golden  Legend,"  some  of 
them  came  here. 

Elsie  asks,  — 


*  At  the  meeting  of  the  proprietors  which  presented  the  thanks  of 
this  church  to  Gov.  Bowdoin  for  the  clock,  which  now  does   the  duty 

of  the  puritanical  hour-glass,  Hon. rose,  and  asked  "what  had 

been  done  with  the  old  clock."    I  was  myself  baptized  in  Brattle  Street, 
and  for  years  heard  the  new  clock  tick  out  the  time. 


ANTWERP,  THE  RHINE,  AND   SWITZERLAND.        65 

«*  Who  built  it? 

Prince  Henry.    A  great  master  of  his  craft, — 
Erwin  von  Steinbach.     But  not  he  alone ; 
For  many  generations  labored  with  him. 
Children  that  came  to  see  these  saints  in  stoner 
As  day  by  day  out  of  the  blocks  they  rose, 
Grew  old  and  died;  and  still  the  work  went  onr 
And  on  and  on,  and  is  not  yet  completed. 
The  generation  that  succeeds  our  own 
Perhaps  may  finish  it.     The  architect 
Built  his  great  heart  into  these  sculptured  stones ; 
And  with  him  toiled  his  children,  and  their  lives 
Were  builded,  with  his  own,  into  the  walls, 
As  offerings  unto  God.    You  see  that  statue, 
Fixing  its  joyous  but  deep-wrinkled  eyes 
Upon  the  Pillar  of  the  Angels  yonder: 
That  is  the  image  of  the  master,  carved 
By  the  fair  hand  of  his  own  child,  Sabina. 

Elsie.     How  beautiful  is  the  column  that  he-looks  at! 

Prince  Henry.     That,  too,  she  sculptured.    At  the  base  of  it 
Stand  the  evangelists;  above  their  heads, 
Four  angels,  blowing  upon  marble  trumpets; 
And  over  them  the  blessed  Christ,  surrounded 
By  his  attendant  ministers,  upholding 
The  instruments,  of  his  passion. 

Strasburg  is  nominally  a  French  city  now  ;  and 
we  saw  French  troops,  French  fashions,  French  jour- 
nals, and  French  books,  and  so  on,  more  lavishly 
than  in  Belgium  even.  I  always  like  to  know  how 
grand-scale  history  strikes  the  contemporary  eye  of 
those  who  stand  close  by.  I  was  delighted  to  find, 
therefore,  not  yet  torn  down-  the  flaming  poster,  by 
which  the  prefect  of  police  had  announced  to  the 
people  the  victory  of  Magenta.  It  was  Napoleon's 
telegram  from  the  battle-field  to  Eugenie,  displayed, 
as  we  printers  say,  in  the  largest  practicable  letters. 

5 


66  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  or  EUROPE. 

That  same  news  I  heard,  at  how  many  removes 
from  the  telegram,  from  a  traveller  at  Manitowoc,  — 
a  slab-built  fishing-town  in  the  forest,  on  the  edge  of 
Lake  Michigan.  The  man  had  seen  the  postscript 
of  a  Milwaukie  paper,  and  could  tell  only  as  much  as 
Kaspar  told  "Wilhelmine,  —  that  "  it  was  a  famous 
victory."  The  people  of  Strasburg,  as  they  crowded 
round  this  broad-side,  learned  little  more. 

My  enthusiasm  for  Greenough's  "  Franklin  "  makes 
me  look  with  more  interest  at  the  other  statues  of 
printers.  At  Mayence  there  is  a  statue  of  Guten- 
berg, with  this  inscription  :  — 

JOANNEM  GENSFLEISCH  DE  GUTENBERG 

patricium  Moguntinum. 
Artem  quse  Grsecos  Intuit,  latuitque  Latinos, 

Germnni  sellers  extudit  ingenium: 
Niinc  quicqnid  veteres  sapiunt,  sapiuntque  recentes, 

Non  sibi  sed  populis  omnibus  id  sapiunt. 

A  very  good  brag ;  but,  as  Dr.  Lathrop  said  of  the 
French  officer's  remark  about  the  cheese,  very  poor 
Latin.*  Cheever  s  sixth  form  at  the  Latin  School, 
among  whom  poor  Ben  Franklin  lurked  when  he  was 
a  little  boy  of  the  first  form,  just  where  his  statue  is 
this  day,  would  have  done  as  well,  or  better. 

*  Count  D'Estaing's  staff  were  dining  at  Gov.  Hancock's.  French 
was  not  much  spoken  in  those  days,  and  the  governor's  company  con- 
versed mostly  in  Latin.  Taking  his  topic  from  the  cheese  they  were 
eating,  a  Capitaine  de  Vaisseau  said  to  Dr.  Lathrop,  In  full  Continental 
pronunciation,  "  Bonoom  cahseoom."  The  doctor  did  not  understand, 
and  the  governor  had  to  interpret.  The  doctor  had  no  faith  in  their 
Frenchified  Latin,  and  preferred  an  American  pronunciation  of  the 
vowels.  "Very  good  cheese,"  said  he,  "but  very  poor  Latin." 


ANTWERP,  THE   RHINE,  AND    SWITZERLAND.        67 

At  Strasburg,  for  reasons  known  to  all  printers, 
there  is  another  statue  of  Gutenberg.  He  began 
the  experiments  here  which  he  finished  there.  As 
we  looked  at  it,  I  recognized  the  figure  of  Franklin 
among  the  bas-reliefs  upon  the  base.  This  led  to 
further  study  of  them  ;  from  which  we  found  that  they 
symbolized  the  advantages  which  printing  had  con- 
ferred on  the  four  quarters  of  the  world.  Each 
quarter  had  a  bas-relief.  Franklin  figured,  of  course, 
on  the  American  side ;  and  Lafayette,  I  remember, 
was  there  also.  Lest  we  should  not  recognize  them 
all,  their  names  were  below. 

My  partiality  for  my  friend  Greenough  might  be 
thought  to  mislead  me,  when  I  say  that  his  bronze 
statue  of  Franklin  is  far  finer  than  either  of  these. 
Let  me  then  say,  as  a  printer's  apprentice,  that  his 
bas-relief  representation  of  the  printing  art  is  not 
only  more  artistic,  but  in  every  regard  more  effective 
and  true  in  its  symbolism,  than  those  here. 

I  wish  I  had  more  memoranda  of  our  fortunate  * 
afternoon  at  Strasburg.  To  those  whose  associations 
with  it  are  of  pate  de  fois  gras,  I  may  say,  that  "  they 
say,"  that,  in  almost  every  house  in  the  city,  of  some 
fifty  thousand  people,  are  geese  whose  livers  are  being 
fattened  for  this  luxury. 

As  to  the  Cathedral,  I  am  fortunate  enough  to  be 
able  to  add  to  my  own  halting  notes  a  contemporary 
memorandum  by  a  friend  :  — 

"  This  Cathedral  far  surpasses  any  thing  we  have 


68 


seen.  Other  churches  seem  to  be  built  to  honor 
man ;  this,  for  the  glory  of  God.  In  other  churches, 
you  go  to  see  pictures  or  carvings  or  statuary ;  but 
here,  although  there  are  some  good  pictures,  and  a 
great  deal  of  beautiful  carved  stone-work  and  statues 
clustering  about  each  pillar,  all  charmingly  wrought, 
all  is  subordinated  to  the  general  effect  of  the  whole. 
When  you  first  enter  the  church,  it  seems  almost  too 
dark ;  but,  after  a  little  while,  the  eye  becomes^  ac- 
customed to  it,  and  the  solemnizing  effect  of  the  dim 
religious  light  is  felt  fully.  The  whole  church  is 
open,  so  that  you  take  in  all  the  effect  at  once.  It 
is  not,,  like  English  churches,  divided  into  several,  so 
that  the  effect  of  the  vastness  is  lost  and  frittered 
away.  The  windows  are  filled  with  stained  glass, 
mostly  old.  Service  was  going  on,  —  consisting  of 
playing  on  the  organ,  and  singing  by  an  unseen  choir. 
It  was  very  solemn,  and  the  effect  of  the  music  re- 
sounding through  the  aisles  of  this  immense  church 
is  not  to  .be  told." 

From  Strasburg  to  Bale  we  went  by  rail ;  alas  ! 
after  dark;  not  often  a  fault  in  our  travelling.  Who- 
ever wants  notes  of  this  route,  therefore,  must  look 
in  the  Mount- Vernon  Papers,  or  other  contemporary 
narratives  ;  not  here.  The  rapid  —  too  rapid  — 
dash  across  Switzerland,  which  followed  in  two  de- 
lightful days,  was  too  rapid  to  leave  much  memoran- 
dum behind.  The  following  scraps  are  all  I  find. 
I  am  again  indebted  to  a  friend. 


ANTWERP,  THE   RHINE,  AND   SWITZERLAND.        69 

"ARMSTEG,  Oct.  28. 

"We  left  Basle  at  ten,  A.M.,  and  came  by  rail  to 
Lucerne  :  but,  before  we  arrived  there,  the  first  of  the 
Alps  had  made  their  appearance  ;  and,  though  proba- 
bly far  inferior  to  what  we  shall  see,  they  looked  very 
grand,  the  effect  being  heightened  by  a  recent  snow- 
storm. I  could  not  help  thinking  of  Tom  Moore's  — 

*  And,  like  a  glory,  the  broad  sun 
Hangs  over  sainted  Lebanon, 
Whose  top  in  wintry  grandeur  towers, 
And  whitens  with  eternal  sleet; 
While  Summer,  with  her  vale  of  flowers, 
Lies  sleeping  rosy  at  its  feet.' 

The  bright  leaves  of  the  trees,  and  cultivated  fields 
and  gardens  below,  making  up  the  last  of  the  picture. 
From  Lucerne  to  Fluellen  we  came  by  steamboat ; 
the  first  part  of  the  way  being  beautiful  bright  sun- 
shine, and  very  quiet.  At  the  last  there  was  one  of 
those  violent  storms  of  wind  for  which  the  lake  is 
famous ;  like  that  which  made  Gessler  release  Wil- 
liam Tell  to  manage  his  boat  for  him." 

[From  another  Letter.] 

You  will  hardly  find  Armsteg  on  any  map  ;  unless, 
indeed,  in  the  Murray's  "Northern  Italy."  It  is 
not  even  a  post-horse  place,  but  is  a  village  between 
Altorf,  —  where  William  Tell  hit  the  apple,  —  which 
is  near  the  southern  end  of  the  Lake  of  Lucerne 
("the  most  beautiful  sheet  of  water  in  the  world," 


70  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  or  EUROPE. 

says  Sir  James  Mackintosh);  between  Altorf,  I  say, 
and  Hospenthal,  at  the  beginning  of  the  St.  Gothard 
pass.  We  have  driven  here  in  a  post  -  carriage 
through  the  gloaming,  that  we  may  have  a  full  day 
for  the  passage  of  the  St.  Gothard ;  which,  if  the 
weather  is  fine,  we  make  in  the  same  carriage  to- 
morrow. 

We  came  in  cold  and  hungry,  to  be  received  by 
the  nicest  of  Swiss  girls,  in  the  nicest  of  Swiss  inns. 
To  me,  ordering  the  supper,  mademoiselle  said  they 
had  (inter  alia)  truites.  As  the  truite*  this  morning 
had  been  boiled,  to  our  dismay,  I  said,  "  Pas  bouil- 
lies ; "  to  which  she,  with  disgust,  "Ah?  pas bouillies;" 
and  I  added,  in  explanation,  "  Mais  friz-z-z-z-z-z-zzz," 
which  she  a  parfaitement  entcndu. 

At  Bale,  by  a  mistake,  we  were  quartered  at  a 
hotel  which  was  a  good  way  from  both  stations.  We 
had  only  time,  therefore,  for  a  little  shopping  on  our 
way  to  the  Lucerne  train,  and  nearly  lost  it;  for 
in  these  countries,  if  you  have  baggage,  you  must  be 
at  the  station  from  five  to  thirty  minutes  before  the 
train  goes.  With  indignation  the  baggage-man  said  to 
me,  "  Vous  etes  bien  tard,  monsieur ; "  and  I,  "  Je  le 
sais  bien,  monsieur."  —  "  Et  pourquoi  ? "  —  "  Parce- 
que  les  chevaux  de  Bale  ne  marchent  pas  vite,"  said 
I ;  a  pleasantry  which  tamed  him,  and  he  permitted  us 
to  depart.  For  the  first  time,  we  entered  an  American 
long-car.  The  road  is  new,  opened  this  summer,  and 
the  country  so  lovely  ! 


ANTWERP,  THE   RHINE,  AND    SWITZERLAND.       71 

It  was  a  valley  ride,  like  the  passes  of  the  Potomac 
in  many  places  ;  the  woods  on  the  hills  in  all  the 
glory  of  our  Indian  summer,  save  the  red  maple ; 
the  other  colors  quite  as  brilliant.  Mountains  high- 
er, and  still  higher,  shut  in  this  valley,  and  at  last 
began  to  be  white  with  snow ;  not  because  they  were 
Alps  (for  they  were  not),  but  because  it  snowed  last 
week  on  this  Righi  range  for  our  express  benefit. 
The  valleys  are  as  green  as  summer.  The  dahlias, 
even,  were  untouched ;  which,  as  we  passed  through 
Rhenish  Bavaria  yesterday,  had  been  cut  down  by 
frost.  The  men  and  women  were  at  work  in  the 
fields.  The  country  was  a  garden  still  (as  for  that 
matter,  every  inch  of  Europe  has  been) ;  but  the  hills 
which  shut  them  in,  just  as  the  hills  shut  in  the  valley 
at  Hinsdale  and  Becket,  were  of  this  gorgeous  autumn 
coloring,  and  the  sky  as  blue  as  with  us,  or  "  as  in 
Switzerland."  They  have  built  the  prettiest  stations, 
perfectly  in  keeping;  and  there  is  not  a  house  in 
sight  of  the  road  anywhere  (a  hundred  miles  or  less) 
that  is  not  prettier  than  any  architect  in  Boston,  but 
one,  knows  how  to  build. 

So  at  last  we  swept  through  a  tunnel  into  Lucerne, 
which  looks  as  if  it  had  been  saved  under  glass  for 
five  hundred  years  for  you  and  me  to  look  at.  End 
of  the  railroad.  Of  course,  the  baggage,  instead  of 
going  by  any  vulgar  porter  or  coach,  was  put  into  a 
little  boat,  to  be  carried  across  the  river  to  the  damp- 
skiff.  Of  course,  it  was  a  market-day ;  and  the  deck 


72  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

of  the  "D."  (think  of  the  lagages  being  chalked  with 
"  D."  because  they  were  going  on  a  steamboat !)  was 
crowded  with  the  most  picturesque  peasants  you 
ever  dreamed  of ;  pretty  girls ;  farmers  going  home 
with  their  purchases ;  a  Dominican  friar,  of  whom  I 
surreptitiously  made  a  good  sketch  ;  and  two  hundred 
more  of  the  funniest  people  you  can  conceive.  Of 
course,  the  water  was  as  blue  as  the  sky,  and  the 
day  as  lovely  as  heaven. 

I  do  not  think  the  hills  around  the  lake  are  higher 
than  the  White-face  Mountains ;  or  Eed  Hill,  say, 
north  of  Winnipiseogee  :  I  mean,  higher  from  the 
lake.  (I  stop  to  look  at  Murray,  to  find  that  they 
are  rather  higher,  or  rather  that  Righi  is  4,270  feet 
above  the  lake;  Red  Hill  is  not.)  But  these  rise 
sheer  from  the  water,  by  steeper  lines  than  the 
White  Hills  show,  but  in  exceptions ;  and  literally 
this  lake  has  nothing  but  mountains  round  it.  It  is 
a  gulf  in  the  range  filled  with  water.  Snow-capped, 
all  of  them,  to-day;  and  the  foliage  below  of  the 
richest  colors,  with  these  wonderful  farms  carried  up 
never  so  high  on  the  sides,  and  these  sweet  little  vil- 
lages on  the  shores.  Then,  of  course,  just  as  we 
landed  most  of  our  peasants  at  Brunnen,  up  comes 
one  of  the  gusts  from  the  south,  just  as  at  that  very 
place  where  Gessler  in  his  boat  was  bringing  Tell 
this  way,  so  that  he  was  compelled  to  give  Tell  the 
helm  ;  and  he  jumped  ashore  where  the  chapel  is. 
We  were  wrapped  and  double-wrapped,  but  could 


ANTWERP,  THE   RHINE,  AND   SWITZERLAND.        73 

hardly  keep  our  caps  on.     It  blew  as  I  hardly  ever 
knew  it,  and  made  so  real  the  Tell  story ! 

(How  little  I  thought,  as  I  wrote  these  words,  that 
this  gale  had  left  Europe  strewn  with  more  wrecks 
than  any  gale  for  years  !  *t  was  the  storm  in  which 
the  "  E-oyal  Charter "  was  lost,  with  so  many  lives.) 

It  is  now  Wednesday  evening,  —  Mercoledi,  Ottobre 
26,  as  the  Italian  calendar  before  me  says ;  and  I  am 
trans  monies  in  Airuolo  (an  Italian  town,  so  far  as  lan- 
guage and  population  go),  but  in  the  Swiss  canton 
of  Ticino  (at  the  head  of  that  very  river  Ticino 
which  the  Austrians  made  war  by  crossing  last 
spring),  six  hours  north  of  Lake  Como  :  for  we  have 
crossed  the  Alps ;  and,  after  a  very  wonderful  day  of 
experiences,  we  are  to-night  at  this  comfortable  little 
Italo-Suisse  inn.  Since  I  began,  we  have  had  a 
miraculous  tea,  which  I  believe  has  astonished  the 
natives.  We  have  had  a  fire  built ;  we  have  seen 
twenty-eight  diligence  passengers  come  and  go ;  and 
we  are  here,  without  very  distinct  understanding  how 
we  are  to  go  from  here,  only  conscious  that  we  have 
a  good  fire,  and  are  recruiting  well  from  the  fatigues 
and  excitements  of  the  day. 

Our  Swiss  inn  of  the  Blanche  Croix  turned  out  to 
be  all  that  our  first  fancies  painted  it.  Under  an 
immense  down-bed,  as  always,  I  slept  till  morning : 
and  then,  finding  myself  a  little"  early  for  an  early 
breakfast,  I  had  a  chance  to  run  out  by  the  beautiful 


74  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

Reuss,  which,  was  foaming  and  roaring  by  the  house  ; 
and,  hearing  the  church-bell  ringing,  I  ran  in  there. 
It  was  the  nicest  little  church,  with  sweet  old  pictures  ; 
and  a  little  boy  in  the  chancel,  alone,  ringing  the  bell 
in  the  steeple  above. 

And  so,  by  eight  o'clock  this  morning,  we  started 
up  this  wonderful  pass,  St.  Gothard.  From  Armsteg 
to  the  Devil's  Bridge,  I  walked  a  great  deal  of  the 
way.  The  road,  however,  is  admirable  ;  and,  unless 
you  have  a  chance  to  get  a  good  start  of  the  carriage, 
you  cannot  walk  without  being  left.  I  have  a  daisy 
which  I  picked,  with  its  stem  covered  with  the  fresh- 
falling  snow.  The  pass  was  lovely,  growing  more 
grand  and  more.  At  first,  I  was  comparing  it  with 
the  Cumberland  passes  of  the  Alleghanies,  with  the 
pass  of  the  Notch,  and  with  some  of  the  Green- 
Mountain  passes,  to  which  the  lower  part  bears  strong 
resemblance.  But  all  that  is  over  before  long.  Be- 
fore you  come  to  the  Devil's  Bridge,*  all  vegetation 
ceases.  How  can  trees  grow  on  rocks  of  upright 
mica  slate  ?  When  they  rebuilt  the  road  at  the 
Devil's  Bridge,  thirty  years  ago,  in  order  to  quarry 
the  stone,  they  had  to  lower  the  workmen  down  by 
ropes  on  the  face  of  the  rock,  that  they  should  drill 
the  holes  in  which  the  powder  was  to  be  placed. 
With  admirable  taste,  they  have  left  the  old  Devil's 


*  Compare  Suwarrow's  campaign  of  1799  and  Mr.  Longfellow's  Golden 
Legend  of  six  centuries  earlier. 


ANTWERP,  THE   RHINE,  AND   SWITZERLAND.       75 

Bridge  which  Elsie  and  her  friends  crossed  ;  so  that 
you  have  the  picturesqueness  of  one,  and  the  safety 
of  the  other.*  Nothing  can  give  you  any  idea  of  the 
savage  severity  of  this  bare  rock  but  Mr.  Black's 
photographs  of  White-Mountain  rock.  Imagine  ten 
miles  of  them  on  each  side  of  the  road ;  imagine  the 
road  crossing  from  one  side  of  the  ravine  in  which 
the  Reuss  flows  to  the  other  constantly,  —  it  being,  I 
think,  rather  the  easiest  part  of  the  way  for  the  en- 
gineers to  throw  arches  ;  and  then,  if  you  scatter  in  a 
tunnel  or  two,  you  have  it.  The  Devil's  Bridge  is 
about  twenty-five  hundred  feet  above  Lake  Lucerne. 
Almost  immediately  after,  you  come  out  on  two  pretty 
little  villages  (Andermatt  and  Hospenthal)  at  the  two 
ends  of  an  old  lake-bed,  where  is  now  a  pretty  little 
valley,  affecting  you  like  the  valley  above  the  Notch 
as  you  ascend  the  White  Mountains,  —  "  valley  once 
a  lake,"  says  Murray ;  in  which  view,  I  suppose,  he 
is  correct. 

At  Hospenthal  we  stopped  an  hour  to  change 
horses,  —  have  I  said  that  we  were  travelling  post  ?  — 
and  we  lunched  here.  When  the  new  horses  were 
in,  it  proved  that  they  were  en  traineau,  the  snow  being 
more  deep  above.  We  had  had  enough  to  give  se- 
verity and  character  to  the  rocks,  but  not  to  prevent 


*  Perhaps  the  reader  will  understand  this  from  a  little  sketch  which 
makes  the  vignette  at  the  end  of  this  chapter.  The  bridge  is  girt  in 
there  with  a  spray  of  trichomanes  from  a  waterfall  on  the  other  side  of 
St.  Gothard. 


76  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

my  walking.  The  traineau  was  exactly,  in  size  and 
every  thing  else,  like  the  sled  in  which  we  used  to  be 
drawn  to  school :  possibly  a  little  longer,  with  a  seat 
for  the  driver ;  who  was,  however,  on  foot  half  the 
time.  Lots  of  coats  on ;  lots  of  shawls  on  our  knees. 
We  had  bought  at  Bale  felt  overshoes ;  and,  though 
it  snowed  all  the  way,  I  never  was  more  comfortable. 
The  amount  of  "  travel"  was  immense.  We  were 
constantly  meeting  or  passing  people.  In  two  hours 
and  a  half  more  we  were  at  the  Hospice,  at  the  sum- 
mit, —  grand  old  stone  house,  without  monks  now 
(not  St.  Bernard) ;  and,  in  an  hour  and  a  half  more,  — 
oh,  how  fast  we  came  down  !  —  to  this  nice  little  Airuo- 
lo,  where  is  no  snow  on  the  ground,  and  the  land- 
scape is  as  riant  as  with  you,  or  more  so.  Has  not 
that  been  a  nice  day  to  remember  ? 

"AiRUOLO,  Oct.  26,  1859. 

66  Here  we  are,  safe  across  the  mountain  (or  rather 
lots  of  them)  ;  and  right  glad  am  I  to  be  here.  We 
took  leave  of  our  pretty  little  friend  (who  seemed  to 
think  it  part  of  her  duty  to  give  us  her  undivided 
attention,  except  while  we  were  asleep)  at  eight  this 
A.M.,  and  started  in  our  carriage  comme  Milors  Rosbif 
Anglais;  and,  with  a  bright  sun  over  us,  passed 
through  the  grandest  and  most  beautiful  scenery  that 
I  ever  saw  in  my  life.  It  is  useless  to  compare  the 
Alps  with  the  White  Mountains :  the  former  are  on 
so  much  grander  scale,  that  no  comparison  is  possi- 


ANTWERP,  THE   RHINE,  AND   SWITZERLAND.        77 

ble,  —  the  immense  height  of  the  mountains,  covered 
with  the  recent  snow ;  the  deep,  deep  valleys,  with 
torrents  dashing  through  them  ;  the  sheer  precipices, 
along  which  the  road  wound  ;  the  wonderful  bridges  : 
in  fact,  the  whole  thing  is  on  a  far  grander  scale  than 
any  thing  in  the  White  Mountains.  The  cold  in- 
creased, with  wind  and  a  little  snow,  until  we  got  to 
Hospenthal,  where  we  dined.  When  we  left  there, 
at  twenty  minutes  past  one,  we  were  rather  surprised 
to  be  informed  that  we  must  leave  our  comfortable  car- 
riage, and  proceed  per  traineau.  However,  we  thought 
that  a  nice  covered  sleigh  was  not  a  bad  thing  to 
travel  in  :  but  you  may  guess  our  surprise,  when  we 
came  out,  to  find  that  the  traineau  prepared  for  us 
was,  as  I  told  Edward,  just  such  a  sledge  as  Fergus 
Mclvor  was  dragged  to  execution  in ;  viz.,  a  long, 
narrow  sledge,  with  two  seats  facing  one  another, 
each  just  wide  enough  for  one  person,  and  a  narrow 
place  in  front  for  the  driver.  There  was  another 
sort  of  open  sledge  for  our  luggage.  This  did  not 
look^very  promising;  but  we  bundled  in,  each  wrapped 
in  two  great-coats,  and  with  thick  leggins  and  mocca- 
sins, besides  E.'s  cloak  and  my  Scotch  shawl.  I  sat 
as  executioner  ;  E.,  as  Fergus.  Off  we  started.  The 
snow  came  thicker  and  faster,  and  the  weather  grew 
colder  and  colder,  besides  being  very  windy  ;  until  at 
last  we  could  only  see  just  around  us,  the  distant 
mountains  being  entirely  cut  off.  The  snow  was 
quite  deep  as  we  ascended,  and  the  road  very  narrow ; 


78  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  or  EUROPE. 

and  we  frequently  met  the  sledges  going  down :  so 
it  was  fortunate  for  us  that  our  driver  was  both 
strong  and  skilful ;  for,  as  the  road  on  the  precipice 
side  has  literally  no  wall,  or  even  fence  (nothing  but 
stone  posts,  placed  about  twelve  or  fourteen  feet  apart, 
with  not  even  a  rail  on  the  top),  it  depended  upon  his 
putting  his  foot  out  exactly  at  the  right  moment  to 
prevent  our  going  over  the  precipice,  and  being 
'  dashed  into  ten  million  hatoms.'  Seriously,  how- 
ever, it  did  sometimes  look  a  little  queer,  to  say  the 
least  of  it,  to  see  our  little  sleigh  slide  down  to  within 
a  few  inches  of  a  precipice,  which  it  made  me  dizzy 
to  look  down  upon,  and  that  without  even  a  bank  of 
snow  to  prevent  our  going  over  it.  As  any  proposi- 
tion of  ours  to  alight  or  walk  was  met  with  a  most 
decided  f  Non,  monsieur,'  we  trusted  to  him ;  and 
he  brought  us  safely  through.  In  two  hours  and  a 
half,  we  reached  the  Hospice  on  the  top  of  Mt.  St. 
Gothard ;  having  stopped  at  a  place  which  was  cow- 
house below  and  dwelling-house  above  to  warm  our- 
selves for  a  few  minutes.  At  the  Hospice  there  are 
no  monks  now,*  and  no  one  lives  there ;  but  we 
drove  into  the  arched  place  underneath,  and  got  out 
and  stretched  our  legs,  and  let  our  horses  rest.  I 
gave  our  drivers  there  a  good  drink  out  of  my  brandy- 


*  This,  I  find,  is  a  mistake  ;  but  I  saw  no  monks  nor  anybody  be- 
longing to  the  place.  E.  told  me  there  were  none;  but  Murray  says 
there  are.  (And  who  knows  best,  —  E.  on  the  spot,  or  Murray  in  Albe- 
marle  Street?  Note  by  indignant  commentator.) 


ANTWERP,  THE   RHINE,  AND   SWITZERLAND.        79 

flask ;  for  they  had  worked  hard  and  well,  and  taken 
as  much  care  of  us  as  if  we  were  babies.  <A  spur 
in  the  head '  is  said  to  be  f  worth  two  in  the  heel : ' 
and  it  proved  so  in  this  instance ;  for  we  flew  down 
the  mountain  like  lightning,  taking  the  tune  in  un- 
common short  metre,  and  slewing  prodigiously,  so 
that  we  felt  that  we  did  not  really  know  what  '  slew- 
ing '  was  before.  However,  our  driver  maintained 
his  reputation ;  and  though  the  sleigh  before  us 
pitched  one  of  its  occupants  off,  and  one  of  those 
behind  upset  entirely,  and  we  heard  a  cask  of  cheese 
descending  by  us  down  the  abysm,  we  came  safely 
through,  —  he  catching  the  sleigh,  and  preventing  our 
going  entirely  over,  just  in  the  nick  of  time.  After 
about  three-quarters  of  an  hour  of  this  work,  the 
snow  growing  less,  the  air  becoming  warmer,  and  the 
road  sloshier,  we  arrived  at  a  post-house,  where  we 
were  told  we  must  take  a  carriage  again,  as  there  was 
no  snow  below.  We  were  by  this  time  so  well 
pleased  with  our  little  f  traineau,'  that  we  were  un- 
willing to  leave  it;  but  did  so,  and  soon  set  off  in 
a  very  comfortable  covered  carriage,  which  brought 
us  here  in  about  an  hour.  And  so  ended  our  pas- 
sage of  the  Great  St.  Gothard  ;  and,  if  any  of  our 
friends  ever  had  a  tougher  time  in  passing,  I  am  mis- 
taken. However,  it  is  well  over  now ;  and  I  am 
writing  at  a  most  comfortable  inn,  before  a  bright 
wood  fire,  and  feeling  none  the  worse  for  my  expe- 
rience." 


80 


NINETY    DAYS     WORTH    OF    EUROPE. 


AIRUOLO  to  LUCAKNO,  Oct.  27. 

The  country  is  beautiful,  the  hills  getting  less  and 
less  steep,  and  the  weather  warmer.  I  stopped  at  one 
of  the  most  beautiful  waterfalls  I  ever  saw.  I  went 
close  up  to  it  to  gather  some  wild-flowers.  It  came 
down  twenty  or  thirty  feet  down  a  steep  cliff,  and 
then  shot  straight  out ;  so  that  its  shadow  made  by  the 
sun  upon  the  rock  looked  like  smoke. 

The  little  wreath  of  trichomanes  below  is  from  this 
waterfall.  The  sketch  beyond  is  an  effort  to  recall 

the  relation  of  the  Devil's 
Bridge  below,  and  its  modern 
engineer  -  built  bridge  just 
higher  up  the  stream. 


ITALY. 


81 


I  T  A  L  Y. 


E  had  been  under  Swiss  govern- 
ment ever  since  we  left  Airuo- 
lo,  as  before;  but  this  whole 
valley  seems  perfectly  Italian. 
Locarno  was  our  last  Swiss 
town.  Leaving  this  early  on 
the  28th,  we  had  a  sail  by  steamboat  —  oh,  how 
lovely!  —  on  Lago  Maggiore. 

6 


NINETY    DAYS     WORTH    OF    EUROPE. 


GENOA,  Oct.  28. 

Each,  moment  there  was'  something  pretty  or  some- 
thing exciting.  It  is  my  first  exact  parallel  with 
any  thing  American.  After  you  have  dropped  the 
southern  spurs  of  the  Alps,  the  southern  half  of  the 
lake  is  very  much  like  Lake  George  in  the  lay  of 
the  land,  the  slope  of  the  hills ;  nor  so  very  unlike  in 
their  foliage.  But  there  is  much  chestnut  and  vine, 
and  even  lemon,  plantation  here,  against  the  Ameri- 
can evergreen.  Fortunately  for  us,  the  tops  of  these 
hills  were  all  snow-touched,  and  the  even  line  which 
separated  snow  from  green  was  very  curious.  Pro- 
bably I  might  have  seen  that  on  Lake  George  at  the 
same  season.  What  is  not  on  Lake  George  are 
the  pretty  Italian  villages,  each  with  its  tall  Tuscan 
campanile,  most  likely  not  joined  to  the  church,  and 
squeezed  in  anywhere  on  a  hillside  or  top,  —  no- 
where three  houses  without  one ;  and,  again,  are  the 
sweet  pretty  villas  of  princes,  princesses,  and  my 
lords  Anglais ;  and,  again,  the  very  odd  picturesque 
villages  for  trade  on  the  shore ;  and,  again,  the  for- 
tresses, now  useless,  of  the  recent  days  when  this 
was  a  frontier.  The  Austrian  garrisons  are  removed 
now  ;  for  it  is  all  Victor  Emanuel's  land.  The  day 
was  a  day  of  days ;  and  you  may  guess  how  we  en- 
joyed all  this. 


ITALY.  83 

GENOA,  Saturday,  Oct.  29. 
Inscription  on  Columbus^s  statue  :  — 
"  Unus  erat  mundus ;  duo  sint,  ait  iste.    Fuere !  " 

We  have  seen  to-day  our  first  Italian  churches 
and  galleries.  It  is  known  to  both  of  you,  and  to  all 
of  the  learned,  that  I  am -not  particularly  strong  on 
this  line  of  sight-seeing.  I  range  at  a  low  standard  the 
ability  of  the  human  being  to  take  in  pictorial  beauty 
in  large  doses ;  and  I  had  a  great  deal  rather  see  one 
fine  picture  than  forty.  Whatever  your  theory  in 
this  regard,  however,  you  cannot  resist  the  temptation 
of  seeing  the  forty,  —  if  the  chance  offers,  and  you 
know  you  shall  never  see  them  again,  —  even  if  they 
happen  to  be  four  hundred ;  and  I  enjoyed  intensely 
what  I  saw  at  Antwerp.  I  had  meant  to  have  writ- 
ten to  you  a  special  letter  on  Rubens  and  Vandyke 
after  the  few  days  we  spent  there.  Still,  I  was  very 
glad  to  take  a  good  fresh  week  of  the  finest  scenery 
in  the  world,  before  another  bit  of  the  galleries 
came  in ;  and  so,  to  my  joy,  I  found  myself  perfectly 
fresh,  and  in  condition  to  enjoy  Genoa.  You  would 
say,  I  think,  —  I  know  I  supposed,  —  that,  on  the 
whole,  one  of  these  intensely  ornamented  churches 
must  be,  in  general  effect,  very  much  like  another; 
but  it  is  not  so  in  the  least.  Between  the  Annun- 
ziata  (where  I  was  to-day)  and  one  of  the  Antwerp 
churches,  for  instance,  there  is  no  more  resemblance 
than  between  a  handsome  vase  of  Sevres  and  a 


84  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

handsome  vase  of  carved  ivory.  The  Annunziata 
is  the  Sevres,  —  positive  color  and  gold,  every  inch 
of  it  which  is  not  white  marble,  but  that  the  floor  is 
white  and  black  marble ;  none  of  the  sombre  effects 
of  stone,  shadow,  and  neutral  tints,  thence  resulting; 
every  thing  of  a  blaze  with  color,  marble,  or  gold. 

To  begin  with,  you  and  I  had  not  yesterday  the 
least  idea  of  the  brilliancy  of  fresco.      I  had  seen 
frescoes  in  England,  in  Antwerp,  and  in  Cologne; 
and  they  give  no  more  idea  of  the  possible  brilliancy 
of  fresco,   than    does   the   water  -  color  painting   on 
the  ceiling  of  my  church.     If  the  sacristan  knew  the 
truth  at  the  Annunziata,  the  frescoes  tiiere  are  two 
or  three  centuries  old.     They  are  as  fresh,  and  the 
colors   as   strong,  as  one  of  these  body-color  land- 
scapes that  we  have  been  buying  in  Switzerland.     In 
the  vaulted  roof,  there  are  a  series  of  these  large 
paintings  ;    in  this   church,   they  all  tell  the    story 
of  the  Annunciation.     They  are  separated  each  from 
each   by  arabesque    devices ;    and,   at   the    last,   by 
brilliant   gilding    along    the    lines    of   the    groining. 
The  pillars  (Gothic)  which  support  the  roof  are  of 
white  marble,  inlaid  with  brilliant  crimson  marble. 
The  pillars  at  the  right  and  left  of  the  aisles  make, 
with  the  arches  above  them,  the  portals  of  as  many 
side-chapels,  in  each  of  which  is  its  own  altar,  with 
its  own  paintings :  each  altar  fronting  into  the  church, 
at  right  angles  with  the  great  altar ;  not,  as  usual,  to 
the  west,  as  that  does.     This  church  was  built  and 


ITALY.  85 

endowed  by  one  family :  its  adornment  is,  therefore, 
chiefly  upon  one  plan.  There  are  not  the  surprises 
and  varieties  of  the  German  churches,  but  gems  and 
gold  and  incense  to  your  heart's  content.  Now,  all 
this  brilliancy  of  brilliancy ;  this  freshness,  which 
literally  makes  the  shrine  dedicated  in  1657  to  look 
as  fresh  as  that  next  it,  re-arrayed  in  1826,  —  is,  I 
suppose,  Italian :  there  is  nothing  like  it  in  the 
German  churches.  To  us  Teutons,  for  all  purposes 
of  solemnity,  it  is  a  loss  rather  than  a  gain. 

Going  afterwards  into  three  of  the  finest  palaces 
here,  still  inhabited  by  the  families  (who  permit 
strangers  to  see  the  galleries,  however),  this  same 
freshness  —  ignorance  complete  of  time  —  appeared 
there,  to  my  great  relief  and  joy.  I  own  to  a  terror 
lest  the  old  pictures  were  to  look  old ;  but  this  is  the 
first  fine-art  remark  I  have  to  make  to  you,  that  a 
picture  by  Guido  Reiii  looks  as  living,  fresh,  distinct, 
warm,  and  brilliant,  as  any  thing  in  the  Dusseldorf 
Gallery,  though  never  raw.  Six  little  Raphaels, 
which  I  saw  last  of  all,  —  oh,  how  beautiful  one 
of  them  was  !  —  have  the  same  life,  and  richness  of 
effective  color,  as  any  painting  on  copper  (these  are 
on  copper)  that  you  can  look  at  in  Washington  Street. 
In  this  visibility  of  the  great  pictures  was  a  great 
relief  to  me,  of  character  the  same  as  that  which  I 
felt  in  finding  the  Beza  Manuscript  legible ;  and  in 
degree  much  greater,  in  proportion  as  one  cares  for 
Raphael  more  than  he  does  for  6odices. 


86  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

Having  set  your  mind  at  rest  on  this  point,  I  will 
now  describe  a  palazzo.  I  think  we  should  like  to 
live  in  one,  though  the  floors  are  marble.  You  drive 
under  an  arch  into  a  covered  court,  which  in  the 
largest  palazzi  becomes  an  orange  -  garden  ;  and 
the  best  rooms  look  into  this,  as  in  the  old  National 
Hotel  at  Washington.  I  think  your  stable  is  on  that 
floor :  probably  kitchens  and  so  forth  are.  I  know 
that  we  saw  the  family-coach  of  the  Balbi  waiting 
for  them  to  go  out,  horses  and  all  under  cover.  To 
see  pictures,  you  go  up  two  stories.  What  they  do 
with  the  second,  I  do  not  know ;  but,  in  each  of  these 
palazzi,  the  whole  floor  all  round  the  square  was 
devoted  to  the  galleries.  They  appear  to  be  the 
great  state  rooms  of  the  house,  —  the  smaller  ones 
more  or  less  in  daily  use.  Many  of  them  are  prettily, 
even  comfortably  furnished.  Once  we  were  shown 
into  a  very  tempting  gentleman's  study ;  and,  in  the 
Balbi  Palace,  we  changed  the  order  of  rooms,  that 
we  might  go  into  the  breakfast-room  before  the 
marchesa  ate  her  breakfast.  The  breakfast  was  on 
the  table.  Many  of  the  rooms  were  carpeted,  more 
of  inlaid  wooden  floors,  and  some  of  marble. 

Now  for  the  arrangement  of  pictures.  (You  see 
how  I  hover  off  the  description  of  them ;  preferring, 
not  unnaturally,  to  describe  upholstery,  which  can 
be  described,  to  attempting  pictures,  which  cannot.) 
In  the  best  of  these  galleries,  every  thing  was 
subordinated  to  the  pictures  :  in  the  others,  they  had 


ITALY.  87 

tried  to  do  this,  without  knowing  how  so  well.  That 
is,  the  pictures  are  not  all  rammed  together,  so  as 
to  hurt  each  other:  but,  their  places  having  been 
determined,  the  frescoes  of  the  walls  are  then  adapted 
to  them ;  the  ceiling  of  each  room  being,  indeed,  an 
elaborate  fresco  painting.  (I  do  not  think  I  have  been 
in  a  room  in  Italy,  even  in  the  simplest  tavern,  in 
these  two  days,  where  the  ceiling  had  not  some  fresco 
painting ;  and,  in  the  villages  I  spoke  of,  most  of  the 
houses  have  more  or  less  pictures  on  the  outside.}  If 
a  picture  is  an  especial  gem,  it  is  adjusted  on  hinges, 
so  that  it  can  be  turned  out  to  the  light.  Care  is 
taken,  even  equal  to  Lady  Pemberly's  dreams,  to  have 
them  match  each  other ;  and,  throughout,  you  have  a 
feeling  that  the  room  was  built  for  them. 

You  ring  at  the  door ;  ask  to  see  the  pictures ; 
and  the  lackey  sends  you  up  to  another  of  his  species. 
You  ring  at  his  door ;  and  he  shows  you  in,  gives 
each  of  you  a  printed  catalogue  of  the  pictures  in 
that  room,  and  is  at  hand  to  answer  any  questions. 
In  each  palazzo,  there  are  eight  or  ten  rooms  and 
galleries,  some  of  them  nearly  as  large  as  the  lar- 
gest exhibition-room  at  the  Athenaeum,  but  most  of 
them  smaller ;  scarcely  a  room,  however,  as  small 
as  a  Boston  parlor,  and  all  very  high.  Now,  to 
speak  of  the  pictures  themselves,  I  do  not  think,  in 
all  these  galleries,  I  have  seen  ten  of  painful  subjects 
(I  have  not  seen  four  bad  pictures) ;  but,  with  regard 
to  almost  every  one,  it  is  a  picture  that  for  some 


88  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

reason   or   other  you  would   be  very  glad  to  have 
these  old  doges  give  you. 

Queerly  enough,  they  are  richer  in  Rubens  and 
Vandyke  than  in  any  other  single  masters  :  there 
must  have  been  some  old  commercial  tie  between 
Genoa  and  Antwerp  that  led  to  this.  Of  course,  it 
is  only  queer  to  travellers  who  took  our  route.  So 
I  have  to  tell  you  how  much  sweetness,  loveliness 
of  conception  and  execution,  there  is  in  Vandyke's 
compositions.  We  only  knew  him  as  they  do  in 
England,  —  as  a  portrait-painter ;  but  his  religious 
pictures,  of  which  we  saw  many  in  Antwerp  and 
some  here,  come  to  the  root  of  the  matter,  as 
Rubens's  do  not.  There  is,  of  course,  a  wonderful 
fluency  of  execution  —  a  perfect  grace  and  ease  — 
in  all  Rubens's  compositions,  which,  besides  the 
miraculous  coloring,  separates  them,  and  distinguishes 
them  from  the  Vandykes  :  but  Vandyke  loved  to 
paint  his  sacred  pictures ;  and  Rubens  could  not 
have  cared  much,  at  the  bottom  of  such  heart  as  he 
had,  for  his.  Then,  as  to  portraits,  they  did  paint 
such  pictures,  as  • —  well,  "  Portrait  of  a  Gentleman  " 
may  be,  after  all,  the  title  of  a  picture  at  the  top  of 
"  art."  We  have  seen,  too,  one  or  two  of  Titian's 
portraits  to-day,  and  some  wonderful  ones  by  people 
of  whom  I  never  heard  before.  Marvellous  pictures, 
many  of  them  family  portraits  in  these  families, 
which  have  hung  here  since  the  gentlemen  and 
ladies  themselves  danced  below;  and,  but  that  age 


ITALY.  .       89 

has  just  softened  the  color  a  little,  as  living  and  fresh 
as  when  people  first  discussed  the  likeness. 

Do  not  marvel  that  I  assume  the  connoisseur.  It 
is  true,  as  I  always  said  it  was,  in  reference  to  an 
art  whose  whole  business  is  to  imitate  and  please, 
—  neither  alone,  but  always  both  together,  —  he 
who  knows  least  of  the  process  is  best  fitted  to  say 
whether  the  imitation  is  good,  and  whether  it  produce 
pleasure  or  pain.  There  is  no  doubt  at  all,  that,  if 
you  brought  any  bright  child  of  ten  years  old  into 
these  galleries,  he  would  select  as  the  best  painters 
those  whom  the  world  has  selected,  though  he  had 
no  hint  given  to  him ;  setting  aside,  of  course,  any 
warping  which  he  might  get  from  favorite  subjects. 
I  have  not  seen  a  picture  to-day  which  compared 
with  the  little  Raphael  which  I  spoke  of  just  now ; 
and  I  should  have  said  so,  had  I  gone  through  the 
rooms  without  a  catalogue.  For  that  matter,  I  could 
have  named  any,  and  any  of  you  could,  —  all  the 
prominent  masters,  —  from  the  notion  of  their  style 
that  we  pick  up  from  books,  from  prints,  and  from 
the  Athenaeum. 

I  have  a  great  deal  more  charity  than  I  had  for 
the  Pre-Raphaelite  business.  At  Antwerp,  they  are 
beginning  to  collect  their  earliest  paintings  of  the 
fourteenth,  and  some  of  the  thirteenth  centuries. 
Here  we  see  a  little  of  the  contemporary  painters 
(not  much),  who  did  not  know  there  was  any  such 
place  as  Flanders  in  the  world,  I  suppose.  In  all 


90  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

of  these  there  is  queer  —  even  preposterous  —  orna- 
ment, decoration,  composition,  and  perspective;  but 
in  almost  all  of  them  you  find  exquisite  faces,  — 
the  most  weird,  or  the  most  delicate  and  refined 
expression :  the  science  or  the  feeling  of  human 
feature  and  expression  could  not  go  farther.  I  don't 
know  what  the  theory  is,  or  what  the  fact  is;  but 
you  can't  help  thinking  that  this  grew  out  of  the 
miniature  in  the  missals  and  manuscripts,  in  which 
you  see  a  good  deal  of  the  same  thing.  However 
this  may  be,  it  is  certain  that  you  catch  sometimes 
beauty,  and  effective  vigor  or  tenderness,  in  these 
faces,  which  cannot  be  surpassed  anywhere. 

Well,  this  is  enough  fine  art ;  and,  for  that 
matter,  too  much. 

LEGHORN. 

The  Livornese  are  reputed  by  the  Florentines  to 
be  no  better  than  savages.  They  are  wild  in  their 
patriotism  just  now;  and  every  doorpost  has  a  picture 
or  a  scutcheon  of  "  our  king,  Vittorio  Emanuele." 
The  poor  fellow  would  be  glad  to  be  their  king; 
but,  alas  !  is  not. 

It  is  a  little  touching  to  see  the  new  names  of  the 
streets  and  squares. 

Here  are  the  Piazza  Carlo  Alberto,  the  Via  Vitto- 
rio Emanuele,  Via  Solferino,  Via  Palestro ;  and  in 
the  Piazza  Carlo  Alberto  are  statues  which  the 
grateful  Livornese  erected  to  the  Duke  Leopold 


ITALY.  91 

they  have  just  driven  away,  and  to  his  father.  The 
railroad  to  Florence,  which  was  the  Strada  Ferrata 
Leopolda,  is  now  the  Strada  Ferrata  Centrale  Toscana. 

FLORENCE,  Nov.  3, 1859. 

We  have  had  three  charming  days  in  Florence, 
and  look  for  another  to-day ;  leaving  here  for  Rome 
to-morrow.  Certainly  nowhere  in  the  world  is  there 
better  place  for  rest  than  here.  The  climate  now  is 
delicious,  without  being  languid.  At  every  step 
out-doors,  it  is  picturesque  beyond  expression ;  and 
within-doors,  no  matter  where  you  go,  these  marvels 
of  painting  or  statuary.  For  the  two  great  galleries, 
the  Pitti  vies  with  the  Uffizi  as  to  which  is  the  finest 
gallery  of  the  world.  [I  learned  afterwards  that  the 
Vatican  picture-gallery,  in  its  forty-nine  pictures,  had 
more  absolute  masterpieces  than  either.]  "  Uffizi " 
means  "  offices  :  "  it  is  as  one  should  say,  "  The 
City-Hall  Gallery;"  the  government  -  offices  being 
down -stairs,  and  these  matchless  galleries  up-stairs. 
A  quarter  of  a  mile  off  is  the  Pitti  Palace,  built  by 
a  certain  Pitti  somewhere  in  the  fifteenth  century, 
and  since  falling  into  the  Medici  Family.  There, 
among  other  places,  the  late  grand  duke  has  lived ; 
and  his  family,  I  don't  know  when,  for  convenience 
of  looking  at  pictures,  had  a  private  walk  of  their 
own  extending  from  one  collection  to  thg  other. 
Over  every  street  it  runs  by  an  arch ;  and,  when  you 
come  to  the  river,  it  makes  an  additional  story  to  the 


92  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

buildings  on  the  bridge.  "We  went  to  the  Uffizi  first, 
this  morning ;  and  I  tried  to  go  by  this  covert  way  to 
the  Pitti :  but,  when  we  got  to  the  river,  we  found 
an  envious  door,  which  the  preservers  of  public  order 
had  not  unlocked. 

Now,  how  much  shall  I  try  to  tell  you  about 
these  galleries  ?  From  Genoa  I  wrote  some  fine-art 
confessions,  which  in  part  explain  my  creed. 

First,  and  briefly,  these  noble  pictures  —  the 
masterpieces  —  are  as  fresh  in  color  as  if  they  had 
been  painted  twenty  years  ago.  There  is  nothing 
raw  and  signboardy  about  them  (and  probably  never 
was)  ;  but  the  color  is  perfect. 

Second,  and  briefly,  —  of  Florence  as  truly  as  of 
Antwerp,  Cologne,  and  Genoa,  —  there  is  no  sort 
of  question  about  who  are  the  masters.  You  and  I, 
without  catalogues,  would  walk  into  the  Pitti,  where 
they  say,  and  truly,  that  there  is  not  one  poor  pic- 
ture; and  then,  merely  from  our  own  likings,  selecting 
out  of  the  five  hundred  the  forty  pictures  we  liked 
best,  they  would  prove  to  be  by  Raphael,  Rubens, 
Andrea  del  Sarto,  Titian,  Vandyke,  Murillo,  Salvator 
Rosa,  Guido  Reni,  Tintoretto,  Carlo  Dolci,  Claude, 
and  Perugino  (there  happens  to  be  no  striking 
Leonardo  da  Vinci  there).  There  would  not  be 
five  outaof  the  forty  by  other  hands.  And  I  think 
that  is  not  a  bad  order  in  which,  though  hastily,  I 
have  written  them. 


ITALY.  93 

[I  tried  this  experiment  afterwards ;  and  have 
my  favorite  forty  marked  as  I  marked  them  without 
a  catalogue,  and  knowing  the  authors  only  by  my 
own  conjecture.  I  did  not  come  quite  up  to  the 
"  masterly  "  selection  I  have  claimed  one  could  make, 
in  the  letter  quoted  above.  The  five  pictures  in 
my  forty,  not  in  this  list  of  masters,  are  by  Fra' 
Bartolommeo,  Domenichino,  Sebastiano  del  Piombo, 
Eembrandt,  and  Cristoforo  Allori.  Of  course,  I 
should  not  dare  say  that  I  should  select  the  same 
forty  on  any  other  day.] 

Thirdly,  on  the  whole,  the  subjects  are  agreeable. 
You  would  be  glad  to  accept  most  of  the  pictures  as 
presents,  if  it  pleased  Eicasoli  —  who  is  the  dictator 
just  now  —  to  give  them  to  you.  This  is  not  quite 
so  true  of  these  public  galleries  as  of  the  private 
ones  which  we  have  seen  before.  But  still  the  Pitti 
collection  is  arranged  in  sixteen  rooms  of  the  upper 
story  of  a  palace,  affecting  to  be  the  private  collection 
of  the  ducal  family ;  and,  on  the  whole,  that  affecta- 
tion is  well  preserved.  The  Uffizi  is  more  a  national 
or  public  affair. 

We  went  first  to  the  Uffizi  collection.  To  my 
amazement,  there  were  no  fees  of  any  sort  beyond 
the  three  staircases,  which  were  pretty  formidable. 
We  bought  catalogues,  and  it  began. 

At  first,  you  don't  know  how  to  pass  any  thing 
by.  How  should  you,  or  why  should  you  ?  If  you 
never  saw  an  antique  before,  stop  and  study  the  first 


94  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

one  you  do  see,  whether  it  be  marked  with  a  star  in 
your  catalogue  or  no.  So  we  worked  on  slowly,  — 
rather  worried  that  we  had  not  gone  first  to  the 
Tribune  to  see  "  the  goddess  who  loves  in  stone,"  — 
when,  lo  !  the  word  "  Tribuna ; "  and  it  proved  that 
the  Tribune  is  a  part  of  this  collection. 

No  !  do  not  expect  my  raptures  yet.  I  liked  the 
"  Venus  de'  Medici  "  too  well  before  to  go  into  much 
farther  enthusiasm  now.  Of  all  the  statuary  I  have 
seen,  —  not  much,  —  the  casts  have  given  me  better 
previous  impressions  than  the  copies  of  the  pictures. 
I  have  never  seen  many  statues  till  now ;  but  what  I 
have  seen  were  good,  and  I  have  seen  them  well. 
In  old  days,  when  the  Athenaeum  was  in  Pearl 
Street,  people  used  to  go  there  to  take  out  books, 
but  not  generally  to  read.  In  those  Pre- Adamite 
times,  Dr.  Bass  (the  librarian)  and  I  were  the  only 
habitues  there.  I  used  to  wind  up  my  day's  work 
by  saying  to  him  that  I  would  thank  him  for  the  key 
to  the  sculpture-room ;  and  there,  by  myself,  and 
without  any  annoyance,  —  as  if  I  were  a  grand  duke 
who  had  walked  across  from  the  Pitti  on  a  festa-day 
to  the  Tribune,  with  no  public,  —  I  had,  in  plaster, 
this  "  Night  and  Morning,"  "  Venus,"  about  six  other 
good  antiques ;  and,  in  marble,  Greenough's  "  Venus 
Victrix,"  and  one  or  two  others.  I  learned  these 
thoroughly  in  those  days. 

This  in  parenthesis,  that  I  may  say  in  all  loyalty 
to  the  past,  that,  exquisite  as  the  "  Venus  "  is,  —  and 


ITALY.  95 

I  have  now  been  to  see  her  four  times,  and  go  again 
to-morrow,  —  she  is  no  more  beautiful  than  I  expected 
her  to  be.  She  expresses  no  more,  and  no  less.  I 
had  rather  have  the  original  than  any  copy  I  ever  saw ; 
but,  if  you  would  throw  in  Powers's  "  California  " 
with  a  good  copy,  I  had  rather  have  the  two  than 
the  original. 

Now  of  the  rest  of  the  Tribune,  which  is  a  col- 
lection of  the  finest  things  in  this  gallery.  The 
picture  which  won  me  the  most,  which  I  remember 
the  best,  and  shall,  is  Andrea  del  Sarto's  "  Holy 
Family."  The  connoisseurs  call  it  the  "  Harpeian," 
because  harpies  are  carved  on  the  throne  on  which 
she  sits.  Andrea  del  Sarto  is  almost  a  new  name 
to  me ;  but  everywhere  I  have  found  the  same 
dignity,  reality,  and  sweetness  combined  in  his 
pictures.  As  I  said,  you  soon  get  to  feel  whether 
these  men  did  or  did  not  go  to  the  root  of  the  matter. 
Enthusiast  as  I  am  about  Rubens,  I  would  not  have 
one  of  his  sacred  pictures  in  our  church,  if  either 
of  the  Leopolds  would  give  me  one.  No,  not  the 
"Descent  from  the  Cross"  itself,  I  believe;  though  I 
possibly  should  make  an  exception  for  that  and  for 
one  other.  But,  of  this  Andrea,  the  quality  is  really 
good;  and  then  the  coloring  and  the  rest  are  all  but  up 
to  the  Raphaels.  The  other  pictures  in  the  Tribune 
are  Titian's  "  Venuses,"  two,  very  beautiful,  —  one  of 
them  really  attractive,  so  far  as  you  can  get  over  the 
odious  associations  of  the  whole  of  that  line  of  paint- 


96  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

ing ;  the  "  Fornariria,"  which  is  much  finer  than  the 
copies,  but  which  I  do  not  care  a  straw  for ;  Guide's 
"  Virgin/'  so  often  copied,  and  exquisite  beyond  all 
copies ;  and  a  good  many  other  pictures  which  we 
have  seen.  You  could  almost  reproduce  the  Tribune 
in  the  large  room  of  the  Athenaeum,  with  the  copies 
they  have  there. 

I  am  not  going  to  describe  the  five  thousand 
pictures  in  the  rest  of  the  Uffizi ;  but,  when  I  come 
home,  we  will  go  to  Cambridge  some  day,  and  ask 
Mr.  Thies  to  show  us,  from  the  Gray  collection,  the 
prints  of,  — 

1st,  Titian's  portrait  of  Capt.  John  di  Medici  of 
the  black  band ;  a  figure  so  much  like  Napoleon, 
that  the  coins  might  have  been  stamped  from  it,  — 
handsome,  black  and  terrible  as  Satan. 

2d  (what  is  in  the  same  room),  A  portrait  of  a 
Spanish  gentleman,  a  soldier,  —  it  might  have  been 
Loyola,  but  is  not;  so  grand,  so  sad! — with  his  hand 
(and  such  a  hand  ! )  just  pointing  down  to  a  flame  on 
an  altar,  which  bears  in  Latin  the  inscription,  "  And 
how  I  wish  it  were  already  lighted  !  " 

3d,  The  "Last  Supper,"  by  B.  Veronese ;  though  I 
am  afraid  the  print  will  not  show  its  magical  color. 

And,  4th,  Paul  Veronese's  "  Esther  before  Ahasue- 
rus ; "  an  exquisite  group,  with  an  exquisite  woman, 
who  had  a  chance  to  do  an  exquisite  thing. 

But  I  am  afraid  it  will  never  do  for  me  to  go  on 
with  a  catalogue  raisonnee,  or  sentimentalize c  of  the 


ITALY.  97 

Uffizi   and   the   Pitti.      Just  a  word  or  two   about 
the  statues. 

All  of  a  sudden,  I  came  plump  on  the  "  Flying 
Mercury/'  —  light  as  a  feather.     Exquisite  it  is ;  not 
as  large  as  life,  but  twice  as  natural.     In  the  same 
room  is  the  "  Bacchus  "  of  Michel  Angelo,  which  he 
made  the   dogs   of  his   day  think  an  antique ;    an 
antique  sacerdossa,  which  nobody  ever  raved  to  me 
about,  but  which  is  beautiful,  — •  sweet,  dignified,  and 
vestal.      One  splendid  hall  is  given  to  poor  Niobe 
and   her  fourteen    children,   who  were    dug   up    at 
Rome  when  the  Medicis  were  in  funds.     But  we  do 
as  well  as  that  now.     That  is  not  true  of  most  of  the 
antiques.    We  do  not,  unless  Thorwaldsen  does,  whom 
I  have  not  seen :   I  have  hopes  for  him.     There  is, 
in  the  antiques,  a  quality  of  energy  (evepyewz),  —  of 
possible  action,  motion ;  desire  of  act  and  motive,  — 
which  the  modern  statues  do  not  have.     Bartolini, 
here,  whose  name  I  have  heard  before,  knew  better 
what    this    essential    necessity   was    than    poor   be- 
Frenched    Canova,    for   whom   my   boy   enthusiasm 
(see    my   first    portfolio,    alas!)    has    gone.       The 
antiques    are    stained    a  little ;    scarcely  too   much, 
however :   and  there  are  many  more  than  we  have 
ever  seen  or  heard  of,  which  have  given  me  great 
pleasure. 

I  find,  after  all,  I  like  the  Uffizi  the  best  of  these 
galleries ;  though  it  has  endless  strings  of  historical 
portraits  and  all  other  trash,  which  they  will  not  let 

7 


98  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

into  the  lordly  Pitti.  But  it  is  not  so  much  gilded 
and  tapestried.  It  has  all  the  statuary,  all  the 
inscriptions,  all  the  vases  (an  immense  Etruscan 
collection,  very  curious),  and  all  the  original  draw- 
ings of  the.  masters.  But  I  remember  that  I  am 
not  only  writing  a  dissertation  upon  fine  art,  but  a 
journal. 

To  go  .back.  From  the  Uffizi  we  went  to  the 
Pitti,  but  found  it  closed  for  the  day ;  and  our  day 
closed  in  the  wildest  series  of  shopping,  in  these 
very  funny  shops  on  the  bridges. 

I  print  the  exuberant  enthusiasm  in  the  letter 
above,  not  because  it  has  any  value  of  itself,  even  for 
the  friends  who  will  read  these  pages,  but  because 
it  shows,  better  than  any  thing  I  could  say  now,  the 
way  in  which  this  paradise  of  fine  art  takes  off  his 
feet,  at  the  first  moment,  the  spectator  who  comes  to 
it,  untaught  and  unprepared,  from  America.  It  will 
be  seen,  that,  by  the  time  I  came  to  Rome,  I  under- 
stood better  how  idle  were  such  detailed  memoranda 
of  impressions.  My  enlargement  of  idea  from  the 
old  Athenaeum  collection  to  the  sculpture  at  the  Uffizi 
was  hardly  more  notable  than  the  second  enlargement, 
when  I  contrasted  that  collection,  comparatively  so 
small,  with  the  Vatican  sculptures. 

Florence  was  in  every  regard  lovely,  the  week  we 
were  there.  The  festa  of  All  Saints  and  the  mezzo- 
festa  of  All  Souls  kept  us  out  of  the  galleries  for  two 


ITALY.  99 

days.  But  there  is  enough,  to  occupy  visitors  for 
months  or  years,  outside  of  the  galleries  ;  and,  in  a 
very  wide-awake  dream  of  beauty,  our  happy  week 
there  sped  by  only  too  fast.  As  these  sheets  pass  the 
press,  I  may  say,  that  the  temperature,  the  atmosphere, 
and  the  weather,  in  general,  were  precisely  like  those 
of  the  corresponding  week  in  Boston,  of  this  Novem- 
ber, 1860;  St.  Martin's  summer  there,  and  our  Indian 
summer  here,  seem  so  exactly  the  same. 

Aside  from  the  usual  interests  of  Florence,  we  had 
the  excitements  of  politics,  so  new  to  her.  Every 
street  was  like  the  chorus  of  an  Italian  opera ;  or,  at  the 
least,  like  a  quartette :  for  you  scarcely  ever  passed  a 
group  in  which  at  least  four  persons  were  not  talking 
at  a  time.  The  standard  ballet  was  "  Masaniello,"  at 
which  the  ballet-girls  —  dressed  in  green,  white,  and 
red  —  were  killing  the  enemies  of  freedom  very 
resolutely  with  wooden  hatchets.  The  flower-sellers 
made  up  lovely  little  tricolor  bouquets,  from  a  green 
geranium-leaf,  a  white  orange-blossom,  and  a  scarlet 
picotee.  There  were  a  dozen  new  liberty- songs  every 
day.  Here  is  one  of  them,  roughly  translated,  but 
not  more  roughly  than  it  was  written.  Garibaldi's 
men,  in  the  war  just  finished,  had  been  called 
"  Hunters  of  the  Alps  "  ("  Cacciatori  delle  Alpi  "). 
At  this  time,  he  and  they  were  at  Bologna,  eager 
to  dash  at  Rome,  but  held  in  by  a  cautious 
diplomacy. 


100  NINETY   DAYS'   WORTH    OF    EUROPE. 


CACCIATORI  DELLE   ALPI. 

My  love  I  left  behind  me ; 

I  left  my  cottage-door ; 
And  nights  and"  mornings  find  me 

An  Alpine  Cacciator. 

My  poor  old  mother  took  me, 
And  led  me  from  the  door; 
And,  when  she  bade  me  leave  her, 
She  kissed  her  son  once  more. 
My  love  I  left  behind  me ; 
I  left  my  cottage-door ; 
And  nights  and  mornings  find  me 
An  Alpine  Cacciator. 

She  said  to  me,  "  My  darling, 

Forget  me  nevermore ; 
But  while  you  live  and  breathe,  child, 

Return  not  to  my  door." 

My  love  I  left  behind  me,  &c. 

"  0  mother !  for  my  country 
To  die,  you  know  I've  sworn: 

If  I  return  dishonored, 
Say  I  am  not  your  son." 

My  love  1  left  behind  me,  &c. 

My  love  walked  with  me  farther ; 

Then  bade  me  bend  my  knee, 
And  said,  "  I'll  be  your  true  love ; 

But  you  must  swear  to  me." 

I  left  my  love  behind  me,  &c. 

"  I  swear  to  you,  my  darling, 

For  our  country  I  will  die : 
When  I  return  dishonored, 

Then  say  I  basely  lie."- 

I  left  my  love  behind  me,  &c. 

And,  as  I  travelled  onward, 
A  gallant  youth  came  near : 


ITALY.  1,01 


I  cried,  "  Are  you  a  Lombard? " 
"  No !  I'm  a  mountaineer." 

I  left  my  love  behind  me,  &c. 

"  How  far,  then,  have  you  journeyed 

Along  your  rugged  ways?  " 
"  A  month  have  I  been  marching 

'Twixt  snowy  nights  and  days." 

I  left  my  love  behind  me,  &c. 

See  one,  two,  three !  —  how  many ! 

"Whence  come,  and  whither  fare?  " 
"  From  Modena  we  are  marching, 

To  fight;  and  you  know  where." 

I've  left  my  love  behind  me,  &c. 

"  Italia  viva !  —  Who  are  these  ?  " 
"  Italia !  —  From  Parma,  we." 

"  And  who  are  these  ?  "  —  "  Italia ! 
We're  the  boys  of  Tuscany !  " 

I've  left  my  love  behind  me,  &c. 

"  Who  is  this  in  haste,  here, 

All  armed,  and  rushing  by  ? 
Halt,  friend!  and  give  the  watchword." 

"  Yes !  from  Romagna,  I." 

I've  left  my  love  behind  me,  &c. 

And  here  another,  —  faster 

And  farther  he  has  sped,  — 
A  messenger  from  Sicily 

To  say  the  king  is  dead ! 

I've  left  my  love  behind  me,  &c. 

Hunters,  lo  the  morning ! 

See  glories  crowding  in ! 
Hunters,  sound  the  horn  now; 
Let  the  chase  begin ! 

I've  left  my  home  behind  me; 

I've  left  my  cottage-door; 
And  nights  and  mornings  find  me 
An  Alpine  Cacciator. 


IOJ3  NINETY    £>\YS'  WORTH    OF    EUROPE. 

In  the  midst  of  all  this  political  excitement,  there 
was  a  dread  of  re-action,  rising  simply  from  the 
memory  of  the  re-action  of  1849,  —  when  the  Grand 
Duke  had  been  as  thoroughly  driven  away  as  now, 
but  was,  of  a  sudden,  recalled,  —  and  from  a  feeling 
of  distrust  of  the  clergy  and  all  persons  attached  to 
the  Roman  Church.  The  government  (an  executive 
council  of  three,  under  the  lead  of  Eicasoli)  was 
watching  the  crisis  with  great  care ;  issuing  every 
day  or  two  some  popular  edict,  and,  as  grumblers 
said,  spending  money  very  fast,  to  keep  the  people  in 
order.  The  wave  of  travel  had  been  greatly  reduced 
by  the  war ;  so  that  the  immense  constituency  at 
Florence  and  the  other  cities,  who  get  their  living 
from  them,  were  out  of  employ,  and,  it  was  feared, 
discontented. 

The  reader  will  please  remember*  that  the  crisis 
was  that  of  transition.  The  Congress  at  Zurich  had 
but  just  adjourned  :  a  European  Congress  to  decide 
the  condition  of  Italy  was  threatened.  The  Grand 
Duke  was  driven  away,  and  Tuscany  had  declared 
for  annexation  to  Sardinia.  Every  decree  of  the  Pro- 
visional Government  was  headed,  "  Under  the  reign 
of  our  king,  Victor  Emanuel."  But  in  the  very 
week  that  I  was  in  Florence  appeared  a  very  crusty 
letter  from  Napoleon  III.,  intimating  to  Victor 
Emanuel  that  he  must  not  take  Tuscany  or  the 
other  duchies  without  leave.  In  all  this  delicate 
interregnum,  Eicasoli  the  dictator  conducted  affairs 


ITALY.  103 

'with  skill,  dignity,  and  honor,  which  deserved,  as 
they  have  gained,  success.  He  ought  to  be  remem- 
bered among  the  noblest  of  the  patriots  of  the  Italian 

resurrection. 

* 

Here  is  the  device  which  the  Pro- 
visional Government  substituted  on 
the  coinage  for  the  head  of  Leopold. 
It  is  the  'Tuscan  lion,  bearing  the 
Italian  tricolor.  The  reverse  was  the 
Florentine  lily. 

With  these  explanations,  I  may  print  the  following 
speculations  on  politics,  which  I  wrote  at  the  time. 

LEGHORN,  Nov.  5,  1859. 
On  board  the  "  Vatican,"  French  Mail  Steamer. 

We  left  beautiful  Florence  this  morning,  after  a 
stay  there  which  has  been  marked  by  very  pleasant 
experience,  and  has  been  a  sort  of  Capua  to  us  after 
our  passage  of  the  St.  Gothard.  It  is  a  marvellously 
delightful  life.  Our  hotel  was  perfection ;  the  weather 
like  our  finest  October  weather,  though  the  nights 
were  not  so  cool;  every  thing  out  of  doors  pictu- 
resque ;  and  a  world  of  wonders  of  art  and  history 
inviting  us  everywhere.  People  always  write  about 
the  fine  arts  of  Florence,  so  that  one  thinks  of  the 
life  there  as  mere  dilettanteism ;  but  you  need  not  be 
more  of  an  artist  than  you  choose,  and  there  are  a 
thousand  things  beside  pictures  and  statues  to  make 
life  pass  agreeably. 


104 


In  the  long  run,  I  do  not  suppose  that  I  should 
rank  the  politics  of  the  place  among  these  agremens : 
but  as  there,  here  at  Genoa,  and  in  our  run  through 
Piedmont,  we  have  been  in  a  transition- time,  it  has 
been  very  curious  to  watch  the  signs  of  the  times 
among  these  descendants  of  Machiavelli ;  and,  when  I 
have  emptied  my  coat-pockets  at  night,  I  have  found 
not  only  Florentine  mosaics,  the  catalogues  of  the  gal- 
leries, and  other  such  things,  but  the  newspapers  of 
the  day  and  a  parcel  of  revolutionary  songs.  Every 
day  I  have  been  tempted  to  write  you  one  speculation 
more  on  the  position  of  Central  Italy.  Every  day  I 
have  rather  shrunk  from  the  doing  so,  for  the  reason 
that  Cousin  gave  when  he  abstained  from  lecturing 
on  Buddhism :  "  I  say  nothing  of  the  Buddhists  in 
these  lectures,  gentlemen;  because  I  know  nothing 
about  them." 

Without  knowing  much  of  the  inside  of  affairs, 
however,  we  have  seen  and  heard  and  read  a  great 
deal  that  is  very  curious  of  the  outside.  I  am  apt  to 
think  also  that  nobody  knows  more  than  three  days' 
worth  more  of  the  inside  than  we  do.  When  we 
landed  in  this  place  from  Genoa  a  week  ago,  we 
found  the  Livornese  very  enthusiastic  and  demon- 
strative. They  have  a  reputation  that  way,  and  are 
called  even  savage  by  the  more  delicate  Medicean 
Florentines.  We  spent  Sunday  here ;  and  the  streets 
were  alive  with  Italian  tri- colors,  which  flaunted  from 
almost  every  house,  many  of  them  bearing  the  cross 


ITALY.  105 

of  Savoy  to  indicate  regard  for  Victor  Emanuel. 
What  seemed  funnier  was,  that  every  shop  and  house 
almost  had  a  little  rough  printed  placard  pasted  on, 
"  Viva  Vittorio  Emanuele.il  nostre  R£  !"  As  poor 
Victor  Emanuel  has  not  been  able  to  consent  to  be 
their  king  to  this  day,  this  loyalty  to  a  king  who  had 
not  taken  the  crown  seemed  very  touching.  Streets 
and  squares  had  had  their  names  changed  to  Palestro, 
Solferino,  Carlo  Alberto,  and  Vittorio.  Even  the 
square  where  are  statues  to  Leopold,  the  Grand  Duke, 
and  Ferdinand,  from  a  grateful  Leghorn,  was  altered 
in  its  own  name  into  Piazza  Carlo  Alberto.  I  may 
say,  en  passant,  that  the  statue  of  the  late  duke  looks 
like  an  indifferent  portrait  of  Professor  Longfellow ; 
and  so  do  the  effigies  on  the  coins. 

This  intense  loyalty  to  their  new  king,  who  is  not 
their  king,  marks  every  thing  we  have  seen  in  the 
week  we  have  been  in  Florence.  There  is  not  so 
much  show  of  tri-colors  as  in  Leghorn,  but  quite 
enough. 

Every  official  document  of  the  city  of  Florence  or 
of  the  State  of  Tuscany  is  headed  with  the  cross  of 
Savoy,  and  the  words  "Regnando  S.  M.  Vittorio 
Emanuele."  The  actual  government  of  Tuscany  is  in 
the  hands  of  three  ministers,  of  whom  B.  Bicasoli,  a 
nobleman  of  great  wealth,  and,  as  I  am  told,  of  great 
cleverness  and  ability,  is  the  chief.  But  all  their 
edicts  begin  thus  with  "Regnando  S.  M.  Vittorio 
Emanuele. 


106          NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

At  the  bottom  of  their  hearts,  they  all  fear  re-action 
more  than  any  thing  else,  —  more  than  Mazzinism, 
more  than  Austria,  and  more  than  the  approaching 
Congress.  I  cannot  learn  that  there  is  any  real 
cause  for  this,  which  anybody  knows  :  but  what  has 
been  may  be ;  and  the  Italians,  though,  as  ought  to 
be  everywhere  said,  now  behaving  magnificently, 
have  been  fickle  in  their  loves  long  before  the  days 

of— 

"  Ay,  down  to  the  dust  with  them,  slaves  as  they  are !  "  — 

and  long  since.  Everybody  here  remembers  the  fate 
of  the  revolution  of  1849,  when  things  seemed  as 
prosperous  as  now :  but,  one  fine  day,  the  Livornese 
National  Guards  fired  on  the  Florentine  mob  in  a 
quarrel ;  the  Florentines  attacked  the  Guards ;  some- 
body shouted  "  Viva  Leopoldo  !  "  whom  everybody 
had  been  execrating  the  day  before  ;  and  in  two  hours 
it  was  settled  that  the  Grand  Duke  should  come  back 
again.  Now,  nobody  knows  why  this  should  be  done 
again ;  but  they  think  that  Napoleon  hopes  for  it,  and 
that  he  is  trusting  time  and  the  chapter  of  accidents 
to  bring  back  the  Grand  Duke  in  this,  which  I  may 
call  the  natural  way. 

The  government,  and  the  liberals  generally,  ap- 
pear to  be,  I  say,  specially  and  first  on  their  guard 
against  this  re-action ;  and  they  certainly  act  with  dig- 
nity and  decision  in  keeping  themselves  before  the 
people,  and  in  keeping  themselves  popular.  From 
day  to  day,  their  journals  (which  are  admirably  edited) 


ITALY.  107 

show  the  hopeful  side  of  things.  Thus  they  trace 
along  the  journey  of  the  agents  whom  they  have  sent 
to  Prussia  and  Russia;  and  they  clip  out  of  every 
journal  in  Europe  any  thing  which  tends  to  show  that 
their  position  is  a  strong  one,  and  will  be  successful. 
"  Time  is  for  us  "  is  a  sort  of  text  just  now  in  one  of 
the  journals ;  and  there  are  no  better  leaders  than 
they  have  written  upon  it.  Meanwhile,  "  II  Monitore 
Toscano,"  the  official  newspaper,  shows  that  they  are 
not  going  to  die  King  Log's  death.  It  is  full  of 
edicts  bearing  directly  on  the  administration,  very 
judiciously  planned,  I  should  say,  for  the  amelioration 
of  things  which  might  have  pressed  on  people,  and 
so  to  popularize  things  which  are ;  and  I  have  seen 
singularly  little  of  the  fuss  and  feathers  with  which 
revolutionists  on  this  continent  are  so  apt  to  waste 
their  powder.  The  trade  of  Florence  is  so  wholly 
a  matter  of  fine  art  and  sentimentalism,  that  it  must 
suffer  more  or  less  even  in  the  most  pacific  of  revo- 
lutions. The  danger  that  the  shopkeepers  will  some 
day  step  out  doors,  and  cry  "  Viva  Leopoldo  ! "  is, 
therefore,  one  of  the  perils  of  the  State.  To  meet 
this,  Bicasoli  is  spending  public  money  in  a  way 
which  prudent  people  are  distressed  at,  but  which  he 
thinks  he  sees  his  way  through.  It  is  whispered  to 
me  by  some  fellow-travellers,  that  they  wholly  failed, 
a  month  since,  to  negotiate  a  loan  in  London ;  but, 
if  the  Sardinians  succeed  with  their  new  loan  as  well 
as  yesterday's  journals  announce,  I  should  think  11 


108          NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

Nostro  Re  might  help  his  Tuscan  friends  through  a 
little.  They  must  have  experienced  a  considerable 
temporary  relief  by  what  they  got  from  my  passports, 
octrois,  postages,  and  gallery  catalogues ;  but,  now 
that  this  is  at  an  end,  the  rub  may  begin.  I  am  told, 
however,  that  Signor  Bicasoli  says,  that,  if  he  can  get 
money  in  no  other  way,  he  will  sell  the  Pitti  Gallery. 

To  wind  up  this  part  of  my  dissertation  by  a  dis- 
course on  that  epigram  of  his,  it  would  be  the  very 
best  thing  he  could  do.  That  is  to  say,  if  in  any 
way  it  can  be  shown  that  constitutional  government 
with  the  Florentines  is  more  than  a  bit  of  sentiment, 
as  it  would  be  shown  if  they  sold  for  it  a  few  hun- 
dred of  the  finest  "  Holy  Families "  in  the  world, 
their  new  establishment  is  a  fixed  fact.  But  as 
long  as  there  is  this  reigning  impression  that  the 
revolution  is  an  entertainment  for  a  few  months, 
which  will  give  place  to  the  next,  bit  of  excitement 
like  it,  poor  Ricasoli  will  not  get  any  money,  nor 
11  Re  Nostro  come  to  enjoy  his  own.  As  it  stands, 
they  want  or  need  the  opportunity  to  make  a  sacrifice 
worthy  of  the  occasion.  If  Garibaldi  got  to  fighting, 
they  would  have  a  chance ;  or  a  good  many  other 
chances  could  be  suggested,  among  which  would  be 
selling  the  Pitti.  .  .  . 

And  pray  let  me  say,  while  I  express  all  these 
possibilities  of  failure  at  such  length,  that  I  feel  as 
if  all  the  probabilities  are  brighter,  and  that  this  is 
but  the  desponding  side,  where  the  other  is,  as  yet, 


ITALY.  109 

the  stronger;  for,  on  the  whole,  it  is  true,  as  the 
"  Secolo  "*  says,  time  is  with  them.  Victor  Emanuel 
cannot  yet  come  down  here  and  be  crowned;  but 
with  every  day  there  is  an  approach  made  to  it. 
Before  we  were  here,  some  edict  had  introduced  the 
Sardinian,  which  is  the  French,  coinage.  Everywhere 
in  the  streets  and  shops  they  are  now  pressing  on  you 
tarifas,  expounding  the  relations  of  sums  in  the  old 
coinage  to  those  in  the  new.  Last  week,  an  an- 
nouncement from  Turin  extended  the  same  postal 
system  over  all  the  revolted  duchies  and  Sardinia,  so 
that  the  single  stamp  covers  a  letter  in  them  all. 
All  this  detail  helps  towards  union.  The  rumor  in 
the  journals  to-day  is,  that  the  Prince  of  Carignano 
is  to  be  sent  from  Turin  as  a  sort  of  regent  over  all 
of  the  revolted  provinces. 

You  will  readily  understand,  that,  on  such  a  state 
of  popular  opinion,  Napoleon's  letter  to  the  King  of 
Sardinia  has  fallen  as  a  very  wet  and  very  cold  blan- 
ket. Their  press,  however,  both  here  and  in  Turin, 
stands  out  very  gallantly  and  very  civilly  towards 
him.  With  Machiavellian  ingenuity,  all  the  journals 
take  the  same  tone,  in  an  argument  which  must  have 
been  suggested  from  some  central  head  -  quarters, 
that  it  is  important  to  distinguish  between  the  prin- 
ciples to  which  Napoleon  pledges  himself  and  the 
individual  opinions  which  he  sustains.  The  princi- 
ples, they  say,  are,  that  there  shall  be  no  armed 
intervention,  and  that  universal  suffrage  is  to  dictate 


110  NINETY    DAYS'  WORTH    OF    EUROPE. 

dynasties.  To  the  last  lie  is,  of  necessity,  pledged  :  to 
the  first  he  pledges  *  himself  now.  The  *  individual 
opinions  are  that  the  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany  shall 
come  back,  &c. ;  but,  as  this  is  impossible  without  an 
armed  intervention,  it  falls  to  the  ground  if  the 
principle  is  sustained. 

Of  course,  in  the  midst  of  all  this,  we  have  a  great 
deal  of  talk  about  everybody's  position  on  the  out- 
.  side,  to  whom  these  poor  "  hereditary  bondsmen " 
are  looking.  Of  the  Pope  and  his  counsellors,  every 
thing  bad  is  said  in  Tuscany.  The  press  is  indulged 
in  full  license  in  discussing  his  right  to  his  temporal 
possessions,  and  they  do  it  extremely  well.  An  in- 
telligent gentleman  said  to  me  that  this  revolution 
differed  from  that  of  1849  in  this,  that  the  people 
now  know  who  is  their  true  enemy ;  viz.,  Pius  IX. 
You  would  think  so  if  you  saw  Florence.  I  was 
present  on  Tuesday  at  the  most  elaborate  service  of 
the  church  in  the  Cathedral,  on  All  Saints'  Day. 
The  day,  in  the  town,  was  a  complete  holiday ;  every 
shop  and  other  place  of  business  closed.  The  arch- 
bishop joined  in  the  most  brilliant  service,  with  every 
accessory ;  but  there  were  not  in  attendance  on  the 
service,  when  I  arrived,  as  many  people  as  there  were 
priests.  Before  it  ended,  more  dropped  in ;  but  at 
no  time  in  the  immense  cathedral,  with  the  whole 
.pomp  of  the  church  before  them,  were  there  attend- 
ants enough  to  have  made  a  respectable  Sunday 
congregation  in  one  of  our  meeting-houses.  This 


ITALY,  111 

observation,  which.  I  made  myself,  confirms  the  re- 
mark which  well-informed  persons  here  make  to  me, 
that  there  is  no  part  of  the  world  where  the  Roman 
Church  has  less  influence  than  in  Florence. 

Yet  the  insurgent  army  in  the  Romagna  does 
not  and  dares  not  hazard  any  attack  on  the  Roman 
States  proper,  —  Catholica,  as  they  call  it  here.  On 
the  other  hand,  they  steadily  deny,  and,  what  is  more, 
disprove,  the  Roman- Catholic  stories  as  to  their  out- 
rages on  the  Roman  priesthood.  If  the  Neapolitan 
forces  would  take  the  initiative,  it  would  be  a  perfect 
blessing  to  the  whole  revolutionary  movement;  but 
Garibaldi  cannot  and  will  not  take  it.  The  on  dit 
here  is,  that,  when  General  Guyon  threatened  to 
withdraw  the  French  troops  from  Rome,,  Cardinal 
Antonelli  replied,  "  We  ask  nothing  better ;  but,  in  a 
fortnight  after  they  go,  your  master  will  cease  to 
be  emperor."  Probably  untrue  in  itself,  the  story 
is  ben  trovato  ;  and  shows  well  enough  what  the  dead- 
lock in  the  "  situation  "  is.  Nobody  can  move  any- 
where ;  and  Paul  Morphy  himself  would  be  puzzled 
to  escape  the  stale-mate  consequent,  which  I  find 
people  dreading.  Napoleon  cannot  desert  the  Pope, 
lest  the  French  Church  desert  him.  He  does  not 
want  to  support  the  Pope,  because,  just  now,  he  is 
himself  "  the  first  soldier  of  Italy."  Garibaldi  can- 
not attack  the  Pope,  because  thus  he  attacks  Napoleon. 
He  cannot  stay  without  doing  any  thing,  because  his 
Cacciatori  degli  Alpi  must  have  some  excitement  to 


112 


NINETY    DAYS    WORTH    OF    EUROPE. 


keep  them  together.  Victor  Emanuel  cannot  take 
the  provinces  which  beg  him  to  do  so,  because  he 
has  promised  to  await  the  Congress ;  but,  while  he 
waits,  they  melt  away.  They,  poor  fellows !  have 
given  up  the  local  nationality  which  we  have  always 
been  told  was  the  curse  of  Italian  freedom ;  and  yet, 
now  they  have  given  it  up,  nobody  will  take  them  as 
subjects,  even  for  the  asking. 

Of  the  marvels,  and  the  exceeding  loveliness 
which  give  me  the  feeling,  that,  if  I  had  no  duties 
and  no  friends  and  no  country,  I  would  go  to  Florence 
to  live,  I  must  not  attempt  to  give  more  even  of  my 
first  impressions.  The  suddenness  with  which  these 
wonders  struck  me  was  so  much  help  for  the  force 
of  the  impression.  I  lingered  in  the  rooms  in  the 
Ufiizi  where  the  original  sketches  by  the  great  masters 
are  preserved.  I  had  not  even  known  that  they  were 
preserved  anywhere  in  any  number ;  and  I  enjoyed 
the  study  of  them,  with  that  feeling  of  sympathy  which 
an  element  of  imperfection  is  so  sure  to  command. 
In  the  Boboli  Gardens,  I  saw  the  first  real  Egyp- 
tian column  I  had  ever  seen ; 
and  I  copied  from  it  these 
royal  cartouches,  —  the  two 
names  of  Ramses  III.,  the  great 
Sesostris,  if  Mr.  Glidden  may 
be  relied  upon.  The  second, 
however,  is  not  the  hiero- 
glyphic combination  used  for 


No.  i. 


No.  2. 


ITALY.  113 

the  names  of  that  monarch  on  the  great  table  of 
Abydos ;  which  spells  out  the  name  "  Ammon," 
here  represented  by  a  figure.  The  first  is  the  title, 
familiar  to  dabblers  in  Egyptian  lore,  "  Sun,  guardian 
of  truth,  approved  of  Phre  (the  sun)."  The  circle  at 
the  top  is  the  sun ;  the  little  sitting  figure  is  Thmei 
(the  Truth),  —  the  same  who  appears  in  the  Hebrew 
Thummim  ;  the  watch-dog's  head  on  a  stick  is 
"  guardian ;  "  the  second  circle,  again,  is  the  sun ; 
and  the  remaining  hieroglyphics  are  characters  which 
mean  "  picked  out,"  or,  as  the  French  read,  beloved 
or  approved.  There  is  a  curious  analogy  in  the  use 
of  these  two  characters  with  our  own  language.  The 
two  characters  are  the  rough  sketch  of  an  adze  above 
a  stream  of  water.  The  stream  indicates  mud.  The 
adze  is  a  pick,  which,  in  its  first  use,  picks  over  this 
mud.  The  participle,  which  the  French  have  taught 
us  to  call  "  beloved  or  approved  "  in  our  translations, 
is  precisely,  and  in  derivation,  our  "picked  over"  as 
we  say  a  "  picked  man."  This  is,  "  The  sun,  guar- 
dian of  truth,  picked  out  by  Phre."  In  cartouche 
No.  2,  the  two  people  looking  each  other  in  the  face 
are  Ramses  III.  and  Ammon;  that  means,  "  Ramses, 
beloved  of  Ammon : "  the  four  characters  below 
spell  "Ramses."  According  to  the  Champollions, 
this  Ramses  is  Sesostris  of  Herodotus,  —  the  Pha- 
raoh of  the  "  Exodus "  of  Moses  ;  but,  as  to 
that,  doctors  fight  as  about  nothing  else,  known  or 
unknown. 

8 


114  NINETY   DAYS'  WORTH    OF    EUROPE. 

Here  is  the  inscription  on  Galileo's  monument  in 
the  Church  of  Santa  Croce  (the  Pantheon  or  "West- 
minster Abbey  of  Florence,  as  the  guide-book  calls 

it):- 

GALILAEUS  GALILAEUS, 

Patria  Florentinus, 
Geometriae,  Astronomiae,  Philosophiae 

Maximus  Restitutor. 

Nulli  Aetatis  Suae  Comparandus 

Hie  bene  quiescat. 

We  are  apt  to  criticize  the  habit,  in  English 
churches,  of  the  builders  of  monuments  commemo- 
rating themselves,  as  well  as  their  departed  friends, 
upon  the  same  stone ;  compelling  it'  to  pay  a  double 
debt.  The  same  custom  seems  almost  universal  here. 
This  monument  was  erected  by  Galileo's  heir,  who 
says  he  did  it  willingly  ("  lubens  animo  absolvit "). 

There  is  a  monument  to  Dante,  with  a  graceful 
inscription  acknowledging  Florence's  old  ingratitude 
to  her  noblest  son. 

The  Convent  of  San  Marco  contains  the  finest, 
and  what  must  be  among  the  earliest,  works  of 
Fra  Angelico.  The  convent  is  still  a  convent,  as  I 
understand,  though  now  with  very  few  monks.  The 
chapter-house,  which  contains  the  "Crucifixion,"  was 
occupied,  while  we  were  there,  as  the  guard-room 
of  the  National  Guard ;  who  respected,  however, 
the  surroundings,  and  seemed  to  understand  the 
necessity  of  preserving  what  was  close  around  them, 
as  well  as  Florence  in  general.  The  arrangement 


ITALY.  .  115 

of  the  cloisters  is  like  the  long  passages  of  the  most 
crowded  wing  of  bedrooms  in  a  summer  hotel.  Long, 
whitewashed  corridors  open  into  little  whitewashed 
cells.  You  are  led  along  through  these,  till  yoisi 
come  of  a  sudden  to  some  exquisite  fresco  ;  where, 
on  the  common  wall,  Fra  Angelico  —  in  his  own  cell 
or  in  some  friend's,  or  on  the  passage-way  —  painted 
some  lovely  vision.  I  am  converted  completely  to 
the  enthusiasm  for  him.  The  sweetness  of  his  con- 
ceptions, the  .perfect  purity  of  the  characters  whom 
he  means  to  be  pure,  are  such  as  give  you  implicit 
confidence  in  him  and  in  his  purity.  You  contract 
for  him  a  personal  affection.  You  are  sure  that  he 
was  a  deeply  religious  man,  to  whom  Art  was  indeed 
the  handmaid  to  a  most  devout  and  loving,  soul. 
If  any  one  wants  to  order  a  copy  of  a  S(  Mother  and 
Child,"  I  recommend  the  two  heads  in  a  fresco  in 
the  up- stairs  corridor.  They  are  engraved  in  the  t 
St.  Marc  collection  as  "  Tav.  xxv.,  Beata  Virgine  e 
Santa." 

The  Hotel  Victoire  is  not  mentioned  in  the  guide- 
books. I  am  tempted  to  say,  therefore,  that  we 
thought  it  the  best  hotel  we  found  in  Europe,  where 
they  are  all  so  good. 

From  Florence  we  returned  to  Leghorn,  and  took 
steamer  at  night  for  Civita  Vecchia.  After  about  six 
hours'  delay  at  this  point,  while  we  were  thoroughly 
searched,  we  took  the  train  by  the  new  railroad  for 
Rome. 


116  NINETY    DAYS'  WORTH    OF    EUROPE. 

The  genius  of  French,  administration,  or  of  English 
common  sense,  or  of  Swiss  intelligence,  pervaded 
every  travelling  arrangement  I  saw  in  Europe,  except 
those  at  Civita  Vecchia.  Here  we  arrived  before 
sunrise,  perhaps  forty  passengers,  in  a  French  steam- 
er, —  "  the  Vatican."  What  was  to  be  done  was 
precisely  what  is  done  in  five  minutes  when  three 
hundred  New- York  passengers  arrive  in  the  middle 
of  the  night  at  Allyn's  Point  or  at  Stonington,  on 
their  way  to  Boston.  For  us  forty,  at  Civita  Vecchia, 
it  took  six  hours.  First,  the  captain  landed  with  a 
list  of  his  passengers  and  our  passports  ;  and,  after  an 
hour  or  two,  returned,  with  permission  to  land  us. 
This  was  only  a  permission  in  bulk,  however.  Then 
we  landed,  and  each  person,  individually,  got  his  own 
permit,  written  out  at  length,  a  duplicate  being  kept 
at  the  office ;  then,  at  another  office,  another  permit 
of  the  same  sort  for  his  luggage,  of  which  another 
duplicate  was  kept.  Thus  much,  I  think,  was  for  na- 
tional purposes.  Then,  to  protect  the  customs  of  the 
city  of  Rome,  as  distinct  from  those  of  the  Roman 
States,  another  permit  was  given  for  the  baggage  to 
enter  that  city,  as  it  happened  that  I  did  not  want  to 
reside  in  the  Campagna ;  and  each  article  was  tied  up 
with  a  cord,  and  sealed  with  a  leaden  seal.  Then  I 
went  to  the  police  to  get  a  permit  enabling  me  to  pass 
from  Civita  Vecchia  to  Rome,  and  a  card  permitting 
me  to  pass  into  the  train ;  this  last  permit,  at  some 
length  again,  filled  out  in  manuscript  like  the  first. 


ITALY.  117 

Then  my  luggage  was  weighed,  and  I  bought  a  rail- 
road-ticket for  that;  then  bought  a  railroad-ticket  for 
myself;  and  then,  giving  up  the  card-permit  to  enter 
the  cars,  and  leaving  my  passport,  which  had  already 
been  endorsed  by  some  Roman  functionary  at  Flo- 
rence, I  was  permitted^  as  may  be  imagined,  to  go  into 
the  railroad-car.  Let  the  reader  imagine  this,  and 
that  all  the  luggage  is  carried  on  men's  backs  from 
one  of  these  offices  to  another ;  that  each  of  the  ser- 
vices I  have  described  is  performed  at  its  own  sepa- 
rate part  of  the  little  town ;  and  he  will  see  that  there 
is  no  wonder  that  these  people  are  a  thousand  years 
behind  the  age :  for  certainly  their  government 
loses  twenty-five  hours  out  of  every  twenty-four.  Of 
which  I  would  not  have  said  so  much  here,  but  that 
it  was  the  only  piece  of  absurd  red-tape  I  saw  in 
Europe.  I  may  add,  that  I  did  not  sleep  in  a  bad 
inn,  I  did  not  hear  but  one  uncivil  word,  I  had  not 
an  instant's  annoyance  from  any  official,  during  my 
rapid  tour.  Of  the  countries  traversed  in  the  journey 
just  described,  I  ought  to  say,  in  general,  that  I  left 
them  with  a  much  higher  feeling  of  the  self-respect 
of  the  Germans  of  the  Rhine,  of  the  Swiss,  and  of  the 
Italians  of  Northern  Italy,  than  I  had  before.  In- 
deed, the  Northern  Italians  show  the  result  of  their 
training  under  institutions  formed  by  and  for  small 
municipalities  more  or  less  independent.  New  Eng- 
land has  been  formed  in  the  same  way ;  and,  between 
the  social  manners  of  New  England  and  those  of 


118 


NINETY    DAYS     WORTH    OF    EUROPE. 


Northern  Italy,  a  hasty  traveller  sees  many  resem- 
blances. Gentlemen  who  have  lived  there  for  years 
assure  me  that  the  resemblance  is  not  superficial. 

ROME. 

At  this  point,  the 
reader  may  take  down 
the  first  volume  of  Mr. 
Hawthorne's  "  MARBLE 
FAUN/'  and  read  its  de- 
scriptions of  Rome  and 
its  fine -art  marvels  as  a 
part  of  this  volume.  As 
the  lawyers  say,  I  ask 
permission  to  insert  it 
here  as  part  of  my  case. 
Mr.  Hawthorne  had  left 
Rome  just  before  I  ar- 
rived there.  All  that  I 
saw,  he  saw,  and  a  great 
deal  more ;  and  all  that 
I  could  say,  in  way  of 
description,  he  has  said, 
and  a  great  deal  more. 
An  accomplished  friend  of  mine,  who  might  boldly 
have  relied  on  his  own  judgment  in  a  matter  of  taste, 
had  directed  a  painter  to  paint  his  house.  When 
they  came  to  arrange  as  to  the  time,  the  painter  said 
he  was  engaged  already  to  paint  Mr.  Washington 


I 


THE   MARBLE    FAUN. 


ITALY.  119 

Allston's  new  house.  "  Ah  !  "  said  my  friend  : 
"  come  to  me  after  him,  and  paint  my  house  the 
color  he  bids  you  paint  his."  In  like  wise,  I  am  so 
fortunate,  that  I  have  returned  from  Rome  to  find 
Mr.  Hawthorne's  descriptions  of  the  "  Beatrice,"  the 
halls  of  the  Capitoline  Museum  and  the  Vatican,  of 
the  Forum  and  of  the  Coliseum,  fresh  from  the  press, 
and  in  every  one's  hands.  I  have  only  to  refer  to 
him,  and  say,  in  appropriate  Italian,  "  Ditto." 

Here  are,  however,  some  contemporary  notes, 
which  give  first  impressions. 

EOME. 

Yesterday,  having  mapped  out  the  ground,  I  knew 
what  I  wanted ;  and  to-day,  after  breakfast,  I  went 
off  alone  to  the  Vatican.  A  little  fee  opened  the 
door  :  and  there  I  was  with,  first,  the  Braccio  Nuovo, 
or  new  wing;  and  afterwards  the  Belvedere  cabinets, 
—  all  my  own,  and  enjoying  them  all  by  myself, 
enough  more  than  poor  Pio  Nono  can. 

The  arrangements  are  truly  princely.  Not  but 
they  made  me  sad :  for  the  English  of  it  is,  that  this 
Roman  see,  after  leading  civilization  with  more  or 
less  success  for  some  five  hundred  years  after  Hilde- 
brand,  came  across  the^  fine-art  temptation,  as  every 
State  does  in  its  day ;  and,  about  the  Perugino  and 
Raphael  and  Michel  Angelo  time,  it  had  its  chance, 
whether  to  be  Queen  of  Art,  or  Mistress  of  the  World ; 
which  is  to  say,  really,  leader  of  the  Christianity  of 


120         NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

the  world.  ff  One  or  the  other/'  said  the  genius, 
"  but  not  both."  And  these  poor  magnificent  popes 
looked  at  both ;  at  this  entrancing,  exquisite  syren 
they  looked,  — 

"  Weighed  her  against  the  world, 
And  found  the  last  the  lightest  !  " 

I  do  not  wonder ;  most  people  do  so.  But  there 
came  in,  in  consequence,  with  St.  Peter's,  the  Vatican 
and  the  frescoes  and  the  antiques,  and,  because  of 
them,  the  hail-storm  of  Luthers  and  Calvins,  Henrys 
and  Knoxes  and  Robinsons  and  Colignys  and  Quakers 
and  Theodore  Parkers,  of  Napoleons  and  Cavours, 
and  devils  generally,  which  have  made  Rome  the  rat- 
hole  that  it  is,  and  left  the  popes  the  greatest  of 
museum-keepers,  and  nothing  more, — the  grandest 
Barnums  of  the  world  !  And  they  might  have  been 
successors  of  St.  Peter. 

[Journal  of  the  Braccio  Nuovo,  —  new  wing  of  the  Vatican  Gallery.] 

There  is  a  great  deal  in  having  a  magnificent  hall 
for  sculpture ;  and  this  new  wing  is  magnificent. 
Mosaic  below,  light  from  above,  very  fine  friezes 
round  the  wall  above  the  niches,  and  really  not  one 
poor  statue  or  bust,  among,  I  should  think,  a  hundred 
and  fifty,  of  which  my  prime  fevorites  are  — 

Pudicitia,  of  which  the  photographs  do  not  give  the 
exquisite  dignity  of  position.  [Mr.  Story  sent  a  cast  of 
this  to  the  Athenaeum,  which  went  to  the  bottom  of 
the  sea  in  that  unfortunate  "Josiah  Quincy."] 


ITALY.  121 

Demosthenes  and  the  Athlete,  which  we  have  in  the 
Athenaeum. 

A  Ceres,  lately  put  there ;  not  in  the  catalogue. 

The  Nile,  which  we  know  from  photographs. 

The  Amazons,  which  I  never  heard  of. 

These  from  memory,  —  the  sure  test  of  fine  art. 

It  was  delicious  to  be  there  all  alone,  looking, 
dreaming,  and  forcing  one's  self  to  remember.  But 
a  custode,  who  wanted  a  paul  (robbing  Pauls  to  pay 
Peter),  came  and  bothered  me,  till  he  took  me  up 
where  I  meant,  of  course,  to  go,  —  to  the  Belvedere 
octagon  in  front  of  the  "Apollo."  I  gave  him  his  paul ; 
told  him  I  wanted  him  110  more ;  and  he  went,  and  I 
had  my  hour  out  there  all  alone. 

The  "  Apollo  "  is  not  fully  represented  by  any  of  the 
casts  ,*  of  course,  not  in  a  photograph  or  print.  I 
have  seen  no  cast  in  which  the  retiring  leg  did  not 
look  exactly  as  if  it  had  been  turned  on  a  lathe, 
without  spring  or  movement.  The  whole  figure,  in 
fact,  is  alive.  They  say  it  shows  no  veins  nor  sinews^ 
having  been  so  far  spiritualized  by  the  sculptor.  I 
am  disposed  to  think  that  the  same  is  true  "of  the 
Venus  de'  Medicis. 

The  "Laocoon"  was  always  a  prime  favorite  of  mine. 
I  can  hardly  say  that  I  find  much  in  this  which  is  not 
in  the  Athenaeum  cast :  but  it  is  so  grand  to  have  the 
light  right,  and  nothing  else  to  worry  you;  room 
enough  also.  Canova,  and,  I  believe,  Michel  Angelo, 


122          NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

have  insisted  that  the  right  arm  is  not  rightly  re- 
stored ;  that  the  hair  should  be  pressed  down  (is,  in- 
deed, pressed  down)  where  the  fingers  come.  George 
says  that  the  swollen  muscle  behind  makes  it  certain 
that  the  arm  was  bent  by  the  sculptor,  and  not  ex- 
tended as  we  see  it. 

The  Antinous  is  now -a- days  called  a  Mercury. 
It  is  not  restored;  wants  a  hand,  and  an  arm,  I  think. 

The  fourth  cabinet  is  given  to  three  works  of 
Canova ;  and,  really,  my  old  friend  comes  out  better 
here  than  anywhere  else  where  I  have  seen  him. 
The  finest  statue  is  the  "  Perseus,"  very  grand,  and 
really  with  some  power  to  move ;  which  most  of  the 
modern  statues  lack  fearfully.  It  is  a  snobbish  thing 
to  say,  but  this  Vatican  Gallery  makes  me  wonder 
why  the  sculptors  stay  in  Rome.  What  can  one  of 
them  think  he  is  doing,  when  any  man  who  works 
for  him  can  make  a  better  statue  by  getting  leave  to 
go  and  copy  one  of  these  antiques  !  Thorwaldsen  is 
the  only  one  of  my  favorites  whose  reputation  stands 
this  test.  (But,  when  I  saw  Mr.  Story's  "Cleopatra," 
I  had  to  qualify  this  remark,  as  you  shall  see.) 

Then  I  had  to  come  down,  unwillingly  enough; 
for  who  knows  if  I  shall  ever  go  there  again  ?  But, 
as  I  passed  by,  I  looked  into  the  library,  and  staid 
there  an  hour. 

Queer  enough,  to  spend  an  hour  in  a  library,  and 
not  to  see  a  book.  But  that  was  just  what  happened. 
The  halls  are  the  finest  I  have  seen,  for  brilliancy  of 


ITALY.  123 

effect :  I  suppose  I  may  now  say,  therefore,  the 
finest  in  the  world.  The  great  hall,  roofed  with  a 
double  arch,  of  which  the  middle  is  supported  by 
magnificent  columns,  is  220  feet  long ;  the  spaces 
between  the  pillars  being  adorned  with  such  vases  as 
the  baptismal  vase  of  Napoleon  IV. ;  a  Sevres  from 
Napoleon  I. ;  another,  from  Charles  X. ;  a  malachite 
one,  from  Nicholas  or  some  of  the  Russians,  on  a  table 
from  Joseph  II. ;  and  a  granite  vase  from  the  Duke 
of  Northumberland.  On  the  sides  and  elsewhere 
are  the  cases  for  the  books  and  manuscripts,  very 
prettily  painted ;  each  set  of  four  panels  having 
generally  two  heads  with  arabesque  adornment,  and 
two  landscapes,  the  two  next  being  arabesques  alone. 
These  are  done  by  artists  of  first-rate  ability ;  and 
you  would  be  glad  of  any  one  of  them  for  a  picture 
in  your  parlor.  The  ceilings  are  painted  in  frescoes 
three  hundred  years  old,  as  fresh  in  color  as  those 
of  last  year.  The  floor  is  polished  black  and  white 
marble. 

At  the  farther  end  of  this  hall,  open  to  the  right 
and  left,  are  the  two  wings,  each  610  feet  long;  so 
that  the  perspective  is  1,220  feet,  all  painted,  as  the 
hall  before.  Still  not  a  book  or  manuscript  in  sight. 
Their  lions  for  exhibition  are  the  frescoes  from  the 
Catacombs,  very  touching  and  beautiful ;  and  those 
from  the  Roman  tombs  in  the  Appian  Way.  The 
color  is  still  vivid,  though  not  so  much  so  as  the 
frescoes  on  the  walls ;  but  the  drawing  is  admirable. 


124         NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  or  EUROPE. 

There  is  a  very  curious  series  of  Ulysses's  history. 
That  is  not  so  well  drawn ;  but  the  others  are  in  as 
good  perspective  and  drawing  as  any  man  in  Rome 
can  draw  to-day.  Other  lions  are  the  gems,  carv- 
ings, crystal  jars,  lachrymatories,  and  all  that  sort  of 
thing. 

ROME,  Nov.  9. 

I  will  not  go  to  bed  without  trying  to  give  you 
some  echo  of  my  feeling  about  St.  Peter's ;  though  it 
certainly  will  be  the  hardest  thing  I  have  tried  to  do. 
It  may  seem  strange  to  you ;  but,  though  I  have 
passed  its  front  two  or  three  times  each  day  since  I 
have  been  here,  I  have  not  been  into  it  till  to-day. 
I  wanted  first  to  understand  Rome,  —  to  know  what 
was  what,  and  how  things  stood.  Then  beside,  almost 
by  accident,  I  got  engaged  among  the  sculptures ;  and 
I  would  not  go  to  St.  Peter's  without  time  enough. 
To-day,  we  went  immediately  after  breakfast. 

I  had  not  understood  that  St.  Peter's  and  the  Va- 
tican are  the  other  side  of  the  river  from  old  Rome. 
Mt.  Janiculum  was  there  too ;  but  the  other  hills  are 
all  parted  from  it  by  the  Tiber.  The  Tiber  is  now 
three  hundred  and  twenty  feet  wide.  We  live  a 
mile  and  a  half  this  side  the  Bridge  of  St.  Angelo, 
once  the  JElian.  We  drive  to  it  through  dirty  little 
streets,  like  what  our  back  alley  will  be  after  high 
houses  have  been  built  on  each  side  for  five  hundred 
years.  At  the  bridge,  we  turn  to  the  right,  and  cross 


ITALY.  125 

toward  the  St.  Angelo  Tower;  then  to  the  left,  in 
front  of  it,  toward  St.  Peter's,  which  we  then  see  as 
you  see  it  in  the  pictures. 

Well,  we  stopped  our  carriage  to-day  when  we 
came  to  that  splendid  "  round  square  "  in  front,  that 
we  might  feel  its  size  as  it  grew  upon  us.  There  are 
good  stanzas  in  "  Childe  Harold "  about  the  non- 
appreciating  of  the  size  at  first.*  You  know,  the 
lines  of  the  dome  are  the  same  as  those  of  our  State 
House.  As  we  stood  looking  at  the  whole,  I  said,  at 
first,  that  the  building  did  not  look  bigger  than  the 
State  House ; .  yet  we  knew,  that,  in  fact,  the  cross  is 
nearly  three  times  as  high  from  the  ground  as  is  our 
Boston  pineapple. 


*  "  Thou  seest  not  all ;  but  piecemeal  thou  must  break 
To  separate  contemplation  the  great  whole : 
And  as  the  ocean  many  bays  will  make, 
That  ask  the  eye ;  so  here  condense  thy  soul 
To  more  immediate  objects,  and  control 
Thy  thoughts  until  thy  mind  hath  got  by  heart 
Its  eloquent  proportions,  and  unroll 
In  mighty  graduations,  part  by  part, 
The  glory  which  at  once  upon  thee  did  not  dart ;  — 

Not  by  its  fault,  but  thine.     Our  outward  sense 
Is  but  of  gradual  grasp :  and  as  it  is 
That  what  we  have  of  feeling  most  intense 
Outstrips  our  faint  expression ;  even  so  this 
Outshining  and  o'erwhelming  edifice 
Fools  our  fond  gaze,  and,  greatest  of  the  great, 
Defies  at  first  our  nature's  littleness ; 
Till,  growing  with  its  growth,  we  thus  dilate 
Our  spirits  to  the  size  of  that  they  contemplate." 


126 


Don't  you  remember  that  no  view  you  ever  saw  of 
the  circular  colonnade  gave  any  idea  of  it  ?  What  is 
queer  is,  that  the  diameter  of  the  circle  is  so  large, 
that  you  get  no  just  idea  of  it  on  the  spot  at  first. 
A  gentleman  in  our  party  insisted  that  the  near 
columns  were  larger  than  the  distant  ones ;  and  till 
we  came  to  the  obelisk  in  the  middle,  where  we  could 
see  the  whole,  could  not  make  out  the  plan. 

So  we  slowly  filtered  up  to  this  great  marvel,  al- 
most as  I  lead  you  along  to  it,  gradually.  More  and 
more  did  its  size  come  out  as  we  walked  on,  the 
mere  physical  walk  across  the  "  round  square "  in 
front  making  one  feel  it;  and  when  at  last,  by  the 
inclined  plane  which  goes  up  to  the  portico  way,  we 
were  in  tha.t,  we  felt  satisfied,  without  entering  the 
church.  It  will  seem  queer  to  you  that  we  did  not 
rush  in ;  but  what  with  distant  views,  studying  the 
statues,  columns,  inscriptions,  and  mosaics,  I  think 
we  were  half  an  hour  in  this  marvellous  portico, 
without  lifting  the  curtain  which  (literally)  separated 
us  from  the  interior.  You  are,  in  such  places,  tamed 
down,  so  that  you  cannot  rush  on :  you  want  to  keep 
alone,  and  move  slowly. 

Of  the  religious  service  going  on  there,  and  the 
direct  impression  which  the  worship  of  the  church 
made  upon  me,  you  shall  read  in  a  letter  I  shall 
write  to  the  "Christian  Register."  [This  letter  was 
afterwards  published  there ;  but  I  have  no  space  to 
reprint  it  here.]  There  is,  however,  another  series 


ITALY.  127 

of  religious  impressions  than  those  created  by  the 
Roman  ritual. 

And  when  we  did  lift  the  two  curtains,  and  pass 
in,  there  was  no  sort  of  disappointment.  I  did  not 
then,  in  the  least,  make  real  the  size.  Before  you  do 
that,  you  have  to  walk  up  and  down  and  across. 
But  you  grow  to  that  every  minute  ;  and  you  do  not 
need  to  grow  to  it  to  appreciate  the  richness  as  well 
as  beauty  of  the  whole.  I  think  the  German  cathe- 
drals have  been  an  excellent  ascending  training  for 
us.  With  their  Teutonic  indifference  and  their 
Gothic  adaptability,  they  break  up  the  unity  of 
their  churches  in  the  adornment  and  arrangement 
of  their  several  chapels.  But  here,  with  ornament 
and  magnificence  enough,  Heaven  knows,  there  is  a 
severe  Greek  unity  running  all  through ;  and  St. 
Peter's  is  not  a  kraal  of  different  shrines,  but  the  one 
central  temple  of  the  world.  When  I  was  thinking 
of  writing  to  the  Sunday-school  children  a  letter 
about  it,  this  illustration  occurred  to  me,  —  that  each 
of  the  four  piers  which  support  the  dome,  and  are  at 
the  four  "  corners  "  of  the  "  central  circle  "  there- 
fore, is  as  large  as  our  whole  church  is.*  Build  in 
our  church  solid  with  brick,  through  and  through ; 
carry  it  up  a  hundred  and  forty  feet-  high;  build 
another  like  it,  on  the  corner  of  Asylum  Street, 


*  I  find,  on  measurement,  that  here  is  a  slight  over-statement.  The 
reader  will  see  how  slight,  if  he  will  compare  these  piers  in  the  plan 
annexed  with  the  ground-floor  of  St.  Paul's  Church. 


128 


NINETY    DAYS    WORTH    OF    EUROPE. 


ninety-two  feet  from  the  first ;  two  more  on  the  other 
side  of  Washington  Street,  also  ninety-two  feet  from 
the  first  two ;  throw  a  dome  over  these,  —  and  you 
have  the  nucleus  of  St.  Peter's.* 

So  it  is,  that  the  men,  women,  and  children  who 
are  walking  about  seem  conveniently  and  appro- 
priately small.  You  pass  workmen  laying  a  marble 
floor,  hammering  noisily ;  but,  before  long,  you  are 
out  of  sound  of  them.  Nothing  but  the  tinkle  of 
a  bell  shows  that  service  is  going  on  in  another  part 
of  the  church ;  and  in  short,  though  there  are  two 
or  three  hundred  or  thousand  other  people  there,  you 
have  it  virtually  all  to  yourself. 

I  think  I  must  have  used  the  word  ( '  brilliancy  "  two 
or  three  times.  In  all  the  grandeur  —  and  it  is 


*  Perhaps  the  little  map  of  the  east  part  of  Boston  Common,  which  I 

place  in  the  margin,  will 
give,  to  those  who  are  at 
home  in  Boston,  a  bet- 
ter idea  of  the  size  of  St. 
Peter's  than  any  descrip- 
tion in  words.  The  por- 
^0*0  ^^.  *tf^ 


tico  is  exactly  the  length 
of  Park-street  Mall :  if  it 
faced  the  mall,  there  would 
be  just  room  to  build  St. 
Peter's,  without  encroach- 
ing on  the  Frog  Pond. 
I  have  drawn  the  ground- 
plan  on  the  map  of  the 
Common,  to  show,  in  gene- 
ral, how  it  would  come,  if 
Aladdin  removed  it  here. 


ITALY.  129 

solemn  grandeur  too  —  of  the  cathedral,  the  bril- 
liancy, not  glaring,  but  vivid  and  enlivening,  con- 
stantly comes  over  you ;  and,  in  looking  back,  it  is 
with  the  feeling  that  you  have  been  in  a  blaze  of 
glory.  Gilding  has  a  great  deal  to  do  with  this,  as 
in  the  Church  of  the  Annunziata,  which  I  saw  in 
Genoa ;  but  the  mosaic,  perhaps,  even  more.  Dp 
you  understand  that  every  painting  in  St.  Peter's, 
except  two,  are  executed  in  mosaic  ?  They  are  copies, 
of  the  full  size,  of  esteemed  pictures,  so  perfectly 
executed,  that  I  had  been  half  round  the  church 
examining  them,  without  knowing  that  they  were  in 
stone,  or  rather  in  glass ;  for  it  is  out  of  bits  of  glass 
that  the  Roman  mosaic  is  made.  This  material  gives  a 
sort  of  automatic  light  to  the  picture,  which  you  are  not 
conscious  of  till  you  are  told  of  it,  but  which  makes 
every  mosaic  picture  I  have  seen  particularly  attrac- 
tive. I  rather  think  they  can  be  seen  from  more 
points  of  view  than  oil-paintings  or  frescoes.  Then 
consider  how  they  stand  time.  There  is  no  cracking 
of  varnish,  nor  mildewing,  nor  any  such  injury,  where 
the  surface  is  really  polished  glass,  and  the  color  an 
essential  part  of  the  very  substance. 

I  am  still  talking  of  detail,  I  see ;  saving  myself, 
as  usual,  from  the  effort  to  convey  the  whole  gran- 
deur of  the  hours  we  spent  there,  by  talking  of  one 
and  another  of  these  incidents  to  it.  All  I  know  of 
the  general  effect  and  the  whole  grandeur  is,  that  I 
was  wholly  at  home  there  from  the  first.  I  felt  that 

9 


130         NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

I  belonged  to  the  church,  and  that  it  belonged  to  me ; 
that  I  had  entire  rights  of  my  own  there ;  and  that  it 
was  a  temple  by  no  means  the  special  property  of 
this  fag-end  of  Christendom  which  is  burrowing  here 
at  Rome.  I  do  not  think  I  had  any  sense  of  wonder 
about  it,  nor  of  disgust  with  the  little  Romanisms,  — 
the  St.  Peter's  toes,  and  so  on.  "  It  is,  and  it  is 
right,"  was  rather  my  idea  all  along;  glad  that 
Michel  Angelo  had  planned  it,  and  glad  that  any- 
body had  built  it.  I  was  not  and  am  not  worried  by 
thought  of  the  taxes  which  paid  for  it,  nor  of  what 
the  stones  might  have  been  sold  for,  nor  of  how  that 
quiddam  ignotum  resulting  from  that  hypothetical 
purchase  might  have  been  given  to  the  poor.  In- 
deed, the  interior  of  St.  Peter's  has  been  (except 
the  Vatican  sculptures)  the  most  satisfactory  thing 
in  Rome. 

I  am  writing  on  this  a  day  after  I  began  it ;  and 
to-day  we  have  seen,  among  a  world  of  other  things, 
in  a  remarkable  drive,  another  church,  the  Basilica  of 
St.  Paul's,  of  which  I  had  heard  little  enough  before, 
but  which  is  second  only  to  St.  Peter's.  It  is  re- 
markable also  as  being  the  work  of  this  very  genera- 
tion of  which  I  am ;  for,  in  1823,  a  fire  broke  out  in 
the  roof  of  the  old  St.  Paul's,  where  worship  had 
been  daily  celebrated  since  the  year  310  or  there- 
abouts. The  roof  fell  in,  and  burned  and  burned 
till  the  splendid  stone  columns  and  every  thing  else 


ITALY.  131 

calcined  and  were  destroyed.  Only  the  very  head  of 
the  nave  was  saved.  From  that  day  to  this,  they 
have  been  rebuilding  it,  more  splendid  than  ever,  — 
a  church  almost  as  large  as  St.  Peter's,  only  lacking  a 
dome,  and  exhibiting  to  the  best  the  sculpture,  the 
painting,  and  the  architecture  of  this  very  time  of 
ours.  You  and  I,  who  have  both  been  trained  (by 
me)  to  consider  that  this  church  building  en  gigcm- 
tesque  was  a  disease  of  earlier  ages,  from  which  ours 
has  recovered,  may  well  be  amazed  at  this  phenome- 
non. In  a  swamp  three  miles  from  Rome,  where  the 
malaria  is  so  severe  that  the  priests  have  to  be 
changed  once  in  six  months,  with  no  more  people  to 
attend  on  the  services  than  there  are  on  Nantasket 
Bench,  have  the  men  of  our  own  day  built  and  deco- 
rated this  magnificent  temple,  rivalling  in  many 
points  their  % own  Cathedral,  because  a  mile  further  on 
St.  Paul  was  beheaded,  and  because  somewhere  in 
the  neighborhood  his  body  and  St.  Peter's  were 
buried !  Let  me  say,  en  passant,  that  modern  art 
need  not  be  ashamed  of  the  comparison.  A  series  of 
frescoes  from  the  life  of  Paul,  running  round  the  top 
of  the  walls,  are,  not  as  good  as  Raphael's  frescoes, 
but  the  best  piece  of  connected  Scripture-illustration 
that  we  have  seen  anywhere  ;  and  executed  often 
with  great  power,  always  in  good  taste.  A  Chapel  of 
St.  Stephen  has  two  excellent  paintings :  one  of  "  I 
see  heaven  open ; "  one  of  "  Lord  Jesus,  receive  my 
spirit."  I  was  grateful  to  them  for  having  a  Chapel 


132         NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

of  St.  Stephen  in  the  Church  of   St.  Paul,  on  the 
principle  that  "Stephen  is  Paul's  John  Baptist." 

I  have  already  announced  that  I  would  not  live 
anywhere  in  Rome  but  in  the  Vatican ;  and  I  cannot 
but  wish  things  may  so  turn,  that,  the  true  faith  get- 
ting its  own,  I  may  be  chosen  Pope.  The  picture- 
gallery  of  the  Vatican  would  just  suit  you  and  me. 
There  are  less  than  fifty  pictures,  I  think ;  but  such 
pictures  !  The  "  Transfiguration  "  is  there ;  but,  in  the 
same  room,  a  finer  picture,  —  Raphael's  "Madonna 
del  Foligno  "  (the  one  which  I  used  irreverently  to  call 
the  grinding-organ  picture),  —  is  the  finest  picture  in 
the  world !  .  .  . 

I  remember  the  last  words  of  my  last  letter  -to  you, 
written  when  I  had  just  come  back  from  the  Vatican 
Gallery,  were,  "The  'Madonna  del  Foligno'  is  the 
finest  picture  in  the  world."  The  last  sight  I  saw  in 
Eome  in  the  picture  line,  or  indeed  in  the  fine-art  line, 
was  that  same  picture.  We  took  farewell  by  going  to 
St.  Peter's,  which  is  always  satisfactory.  There  we  went 
through  the  curious  mosaic  factory  (which  they  call 
mosaic,  —  something  pertaining  to  a  museum,  and  not 
to  Moses) ;  last  of  all,  bade  good-bye  to  this  match- 
less gallery.  Every  thing  of  the  sort  is  better  the 
second  time  than  it  is  the  first.  You  go  first,  my 
dear  Miss  Camel's  Hair,  to  wash  in  your  general 
lights  and  shades :  you  go  afterwards  to  put  on  the 
drier  color  which  makes  your  picture.  Here  are  five 


ITALY.  133 

princely  rooms,  high,  and  without  cross-lights  ;  and,  in 
the  five,  perhaps  forty-five  pictures.  In  the  room  of 
my  "Madonna"  (rather  larger  than  the  largest  Athe- 
naeum room)  are,  beside  that,  only  Raphael's  "  Trans- 
figuration "  and  Domenichino's  "Baptism  of  St. 
Girolamo."  They  are  all  hung  on  hinges,  so  as  to  be 
opened  or  shut  more  or  less  to  just  the  fit  light.  You 
have  light  chairs,  which  you  carry  anywhere  you  will. 
An  attentive  custode  watches  you;  and,  if  the  particular 
picture  you  select  is  not  quite  in  light,  adjusts  it  for 
you.  There  are  not  too  many  people,  and  you  have 
comfort  in  your  fine  art. 

After  the  "  Madonna"  named  above,  my  gems  here 
are  — 

Correggio's  "  Christ,"  with  the  "  Rainbow." 

The  angel  in  Barocci's  "Annunciation."  The 
mother  seems  conscious  and  finical. 

Guido's  "  Mother  and  Child  in  Heaven." 

Raphael's  "  Incoronazione." 

Giulio  Romano's  " Madonna  di  Monte  Luce;"  the 
best  picture  of  his  we  have  seen.  Of  these  two,  the 
Mary  is  the  finer  head  in  the  first;  the  head  of 
Christ  in  the  other. 

And  Domenichino's  "  St.  Girolamo." 

The  history  of  this  exquisite  collection  is  edifying 
to  all  true  believers.  These  are  the  pictures  which 
Napoleon  carried  to  the  Louvre  from  the  Italian 
churches.  After  the  restoration  of  the  Bourbons, 
when  they  were  all  sent  back,  they  were  sent  to 


134         NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

Rome  as  to  head-quarters,  that  they  might  be  restored 
to  their  old  homes.  But  then  the  Pope's  advisers 
said  it  was  really  a  pity  to  have  them  all  scattered 
again :  so  they  fitted  up  this  gallery,  and  kept  them 
together.  A  very  great  convenience  to  popes  and 
travellers,  certainly.  But,  as  poor  Napoleon  has  been 
a  good  deal  abused  for  collecting  them,  one  is  tempted 
to  ask  what  shall  be  said  of  those  who  kept  them 
after  they  had  been  stolen,  when  they  were  received 
there  on  their  way  home  ?  Their  act  seems  to  have 
been  meaner  than  his,  without  his  enterprise. 

Still,  for  all  this,  I  would  not  live  in  Rome,  except 
to  be  Pope  and  to  live  in  the  Vatican.  I  would  ac- 
cept the  appointment,  if  I  were  chosen,  for  the  sake 
of  closing  up  the  concern,  but  with  no  other  view. 
It  has  got  to  be  closed  up,  and  that  pretty  rapidly 
too.  Failing  my  election  (which  seems  improbable), 
the  only  denouement  I  can  think  of,  worthy  the  five 
acts  which  have  passed  since  that  old  widower  jEneas 
married  that  unfortunate  young  Lavinia,  is  to  have 
the  Alban  Hills,  where  her  father  reigned,  break  out 
in  one  of  the  volcanic  eruptions,  which,  clearly,  they 
were  once  used  to,  and  one  slow  wave  of  lava  squeeze 
the  whole  of  this  rickety  old  apple-cart  into  the  sea. 
I  say,  a  slow  wave.  I  wish  to  provide  for  the  exequa- 
tur of  the  people  with  their  household  gods.  I  see 
Story  carrying  off  his  "  Cleopatra,"  which  deserves  to 
be  saved ;  Page,  his  third  "  Venus ; "  and  Pius  strug- 
gling beneath  "  Laocoon,"  while  he  has  the  "  Madonna 


ITALY.  135 

del  Foligno"  rolled  up  under  his  arm.  But  I  think  it 
will  be  better  thus  to  cut  to  the  bone  of  this  great 
sore,  than  to  continue  the  exfoliation  which  has  been 
going  on  since  the  Leos  made  the  fatal  decision  of 
which  I  discoursed  in  one  of  my  last  letters.  The 
fact  is,  the  place  will  never  be  ventilated,  and  will 
always  smell  badly.  Also  it  is,  and  always  will  be,  a 
hotbed  of  malaria. 

Nov.  12,  1859. 

Of  the  topography  of  Rome,  one  or  two  things  are 
to  be  said. 

Travellers  are  recommended,  on  arrival,  to  ascend 
to  the  top  of  the  Capitol  Tower,  and  map  out  Rome 
for  themselves  as  soon  as  possible.  The  advice  is 
excellent ;  and  I  followed  it,  though  not  immediately. 
From  that  survey,  and  others  more  in  detail,  I  have 
learned  what  no  map  ever  told  me,  and  what  no 
traveller  ever  condescended  to  mention ;  what  was  the 
system  of  the  change  of  residence  from  old  Rome  to 
new  Rome,  which  may  be  called  indeed,  perfectly  lite- 
rally, the  decline  of  Rome.  The  old  chain  of  hills, 
excepting  Janiculum,  which  is  trans  Tiberim,  ran  across 
a  neck  of  a  meadow  left  by  the  Tiber,  quite  as  the 
uplands  on  which  Northampton  stands  leave  the  mea- 
dow between  them  and  the  Connecticut.  Romulus, 
Ancus  Martius,  and  the  rest  of  those  gentry,  planted 
their  people  on  these  hills ;  built  the  Cloaca  Maxima  to 
drain  the  ponds  between  them ;  and,  in  short,  pro- 


136         NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

vided,  as  no  Holy  Father  has  done  since,  against  this 
malaria,  which  is  the  real  Attila  which  is  to  destroy 
Rome.  The  meadow,  which  is  just  the  shape  of  that 
left  by  the  bend  above  the  old  Northampton  Ox  Bow, 
was  left  for  Campus  Martius,  Field  of  the  Equites, 
and  occasionally  such  out-door  theatricals  as  need 
large  space ;  and,  when  Rome  wanted  to  enlarge,  it 
enlarged  on  the  country  side,  toward  the  Alban  Hills. 
Of  this  I  had  not  meant  to  say  so  much ;  but  that  the 
view  from  the  Capitol  instantly  showed,  that,  in  fifteen 
hundred  years,  the  same  thing  has  happened  as  at  our 
Washington  in  sixty.  You  know  that  Gen.  Washing- 
ton and  his  commissioners  meant  that  our  Washington 
should  be  on  the  real  front  of  the  Capitol ;  not  at  its 
back,  as  it  is  now.  That  admirable  high  land  which 
stretches  towards  the  Congressional  burying-ground 
and  the  Navy  Yard  was  their  place  for  a  city;  but,  that 
being  held  high  by  speculators,  the  part  of  Pennsyl- 
vania Avenue,  which  was  first  built  upon,  was  the 
swamp  between  the  Capitol  and  the  White  House. 
Just  that  thing  has  happened  here.  First  one  Caesar 
and  another,  with  Palatium  on  the  Palatine,  Baths  of 
Diocletian  on  the  Viminal,  and  such  like,  monopo- 
lized the  hills;  then  any  number  of  middle-aged 
rascals  followed  their  example.  There  was  nobody 
in  particular  to  prevent  "  squatting "  on  these  great 
Campus  Martius  commons,  which  probably  came  to 
be  regarded  as  a  sort  of  Back  Bay ;  and,  in  .process 
of  ungoverned  centuries,  Rome  has  got  squeezed  into 


ITALY.  137 

the  meanest  set  of  narrow  streets,  wholly  without 
plan,  down  on  this  low  land,  where  the  lower  stories 
of  their  houses  are  semi- occasionally  inundated  by  the 
Tiber,  and  where  malaria  makes  itself  at  home.  All 
this  you  see  from  the  Capitol,  looking  west  and  north 
on  modern  Rome,  south  and  east  on  the  old  line  of 
hills,  of  which  the  Capitoline  was  a  projecting  spur. 
North-west  of  you,  on  the  other  side  of  the  river,  are 
St.  Peter's  and  the  Castle  Angelo.  Turn  your  back 
on  them,  and  close  in  front  is  the  Forum,  stretching 
along  to  the  Coliseum,  flanked  on  one  side  by  the 
ruins  of  Caesar's  Palace,  and  on  another  by  those  of 
Nero's,  with  the  Baths  of  Titus.  The  distant  panora- 
ma is  superb ;  and,  since  I  have  seen  all  this,  I  feel  that 
I  have  seen,  and  in  a  measure  understand,  Rome. 

By  the  way,  whoever  built  our  Washington  Capitol 
had  seen  and  studied  this  building,  every  way  inferior, 
which  Michel  Angelo  built  on  the  substructure  of  the 
ancient  Capitol.  Not  that  the  plan  is  the  same.  But 
the  ascent  by  steps  suggested,  I  am  sure,  some  details 
for  the  great  garden  stairway  at  Washington.  The 
carvings  of  the  stone  rail  are  the  same ;  the  caps  of 
the  windows  of  the  building  are  the  same ;  and  so 
of  some  other  details. 

There  is  a  good  deal  of  advice  and  theory  about 
laying  out  routes  so  as  to  do  Rome  in  eight  days  or 
ten  ;  but  I  do  not  see  but  our  way  is  as  good  as  any, 
—  to  see  what  we  most  want  from  day  to  day,  and 
let  the  rest  go. 


138         NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

In  the  great  arena  in  the  interior  of  the  Coliseum 
are  crosses  erected  by  the  religious  community,  which 
takes  especial  care  of  the  worship  conducted  there. 

BACIANDO  Here  is  a  little  paint- 

ing and  inscription  which 
I  copied  there  :  — 

"  Whoever  kisses  the 
sacred  cross  acquires  one 
CROCE    .  year  and  forty  days  of  in- 
SI  AC9U1STA  dulgence." 

UN 'AN  NO  E  XL  Q10RNI  I  did  not  kiss,  there 
DMNDULQEN2IA  or  elsewhere.  Indeed,  I 
should  say  that  any  one  who  believed  the  promise 
would  say  the  bargain  proposed  was  a  bad  one,  if 
he  remembered  what  he  forfeited  in  the  act.  A  child 
always  feels  that  he  is  on  a  wrong  track  when  he  is 
making  contracts  with  his  father,  instead  of  trusting 
wholly  to  his  love. 

The  definition  of  the  dogma  of  the  Immaculate 
Conception,  in  our  own  time,  is  commemorated  by  a 
column,  with  a  statue  of  Mary,  in  the  Piazza  di  Spag- 
na ;  and  by  this  inscription  on  the  left  side  of  the 
Tribune  at  St.  Peter's  :  — 

PIUS  IX., 

PONTIFEX  MAXIMUS, 
In  Hac  Patriarchal!  Basilica,  Die  VIII.  Decembris,  An.  MDCCCLIV., 

Dogmaticam  Definitionem 
De   Conceptione  Immaculata 

Deiparae  Virginia  Mariae, 

Inter  Sacra  Solemnia  Pronunciavit, 

Totiusque  Orbis  Catholic!  Desideria  Explevit. 


ITALY.  139 

PIUS  IX., 

CHIEF  PRIEST, 

In  this  Patriarchal  Basilica, 

On  the  8th  day  of  December,  An.  MDCCCLIV., 

Announced,  amid  Sacred  Solemnities, 

A  dogmatic  definition  concerning  the  Immaculate  Conception  of  the 

Virgin  Mary,  Mother  of  God ;   and  fulfilled  the  desires  of  the 

Whole  Catholic  World. 

"Catholic  world,"  "  orbis  Catholic!,"  for  "the 
church,"  or  "  ecclesia,"  seemed  to  me  very  sad. 
,  "  Catholic  "  means  "  the  whole  ;  "  and,  till  lately, 
these  poor  fellows  have  kept  up  the  pretext  that  they 
were  the  whole.  But  I  suppose  even  they  felt  that 
it  would  be  absurd  to  say  that  the  whole  world 
wanted  this  definition  made.  Is  it  possible  that  they 
hesitated  about  saying  even  the  whole  church  wanted 
it?  Leo  X.  would  have  said  "totius  ecclesise." 

On  the  other  side  of  the  Tribune  are  the  names  of 
the  higher  clergy  present  at  the  ceremony. 

When  the  old  Basilica  of  St.  Paul's  was  burned, 
one  wall  stood,  —  that  which  arches  the  chancel.  It  is 
retained  in  the  new  church,  and  still  bears  this  Latin 
inscription  of  Honorius's  time,  in  the  old  mosaic :  — 

"  Theodosius  cepit;  perfecit  Onorius  aulam 
Doctoris  Mundi  Sacratam  corpore  Pauli." 

Eead  Theo  as  one  syllable,  and  you  get  the  flow  of 
the  verses. 

"  Theodosius  began,  Honorius  finished,  the  temple, 
Sacred  by  the  body  of  Paul,  the  teacher  of  the  world." 

Here  are  some  inscriptions  in  a  columbarium)  or 
burial-place :  — 


140         NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

"  Titus  Claudius,  Cesaris  Nomunclator 
Amaranthus,  vix.  Ann.  XXX." 

"  Titus  Claudius,  Cesar's 
Amaranthine  nomenclator,  lived  thirty  years." 

That  is  all.  They  had  not  long  epitaphs.  A 
nomenclator  was  a  person  who  accompanied  a  great 
man,  to  tell  him  who  people  were,  whom  he  ought  to 
know.  But  what  is  amaranth/us,  —  a  name  ?  or  an 
epithet,  as  I  have  rendered  it  ? 

"  Tyrannus  Topiarius  Marcellae." 
"  Epaphra  Marcellae  Argentarius." 
"  Philiae  Juliae  Alexio  Cesaris  Ser.  Frater  Fecit." 

A  topiarlus  is  a  person  who  trimmed  and  cut  gardens 
into  shape. 

I  have  no  right  to  speak  in  these  pages  of  most 
of  those  friends  whose  greeting  or  whose  help 
added  so  much  to  the  pleasure  of  my  tour ;  but  the 
death  of  Mr.  Theodore  Parker,  since  I  saw  him  in 
Rome,  gives  me  the  sad  privilege  of  speaking  of 
him.  It  was  a  peculiar  satisfaction  to  meet  him  again 
so  often  and  so  pleasantly  as  I  did  there,  so  far  from 
home.  From  the  time  when  I  was  but  a  boy  in  col- 
lege, I  had  received  from  him  tokens  of  his  kindness 
till  the  very  day  he  left  Boston.  It  was  a  singular 
good  fortune,  that,  in  an  experience  so  happy  to  me 
as  my  first  visit  to  Rome,  I  should  meet  again  his 
welcome,  and  receive  from  him  suggestions  as  to 
methods  of  study,  where  he  was  so  much  more  at 
home  than  I.  I  dared  not  persuade  myself  that  his 


ITALY.  141 

recovery  was  probable,  though  he  was  certainly 
stronger  than  when  he  had  left  us.  He  was  strong 
enough  to  be  walking  freely  every  day,  and  studying 
with  his  own  alacrity  the  wonders  of  art  and  the 
beauties  of  nature  around  him.  Of  these  few  inter- 
views, I  remember  now  a  careful  review  in  talk  of  the 
topography  of  Rome ;  an  amusing  and  very  interest- 
ing account  of  his  earlier  explorations  of  the  Library  ; 
a  minute  detail  of  the  exercises  at  a  sacred  fete  he 
had  seen  a  few  days  before ;  and  a  careful,  thorough- 
ly sustained  analysis  of  Buckle,  and  the  claims  of  his 
philosophy  of  history.  So  completely  did  his  mind 
act,  —  even  at  the  close  of  this  life,  —  with  the  ver- 
satility and  vigor  of  the  days  of  his  high  health  at 
home. 

In  Mr.  Story's  studio  we  found  —  besides  how 
much  else  that  fascinated  us !  —  three  statues,  all 
of  which  should  be  in  America,  —  "  Margaret," 
"Hero,"  and  "Cleopatra." 

Under  my  general  rule  (that  I  will  not  "  describe 
the  indescribable  "),  I  say  nothing  of  the  "  Margaret " 
nor  the  "Hero,"  —  two  forms  of  grief,  differing  from 
each  other,  and  with  different  approaches  to  despair. 
Without  describing  the  "  Cleopatra,"  however,  I  must 
speak  of  her.  It  is  true  that  Mr.  Hawthorne  has 
done  so,  a  great  deal  better  than  I  can  do ;  but  I 
must  add  a  word  here,  in  the  expression  of  my  very 
earnest  wish  that  this  statue  may  be  ordered  for  some 


142         NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

position  in  Boston.  Till  I  saw  it,  I  was  dissatisfied 
with  the  work  of  the  modern  sculptors,  almost  with- 
out exception.  If  they  could  do  nothing  better  than 
reproduce  the  antique  mythology  for  me,  I  had  a 
great  deal  rather  have  the  classical  representations 
of  the  antique  than  their  reproductions.  Let  me 
have  the  marvels  of  the  Vatican  copied  with  their 
old  names,  instead  of  having  them  copied  with  new 
names.  If  the  nineteenth  century  has  nothing  else  to 
say  than  Praxiteles  said,  or  Phidias,  let  us  have  the 
remarks  of  Phidias  undigested  and  unabridged.  I 
always  hated  abridgments,  and  distrusted  translations. 
I  had  rather  read  Homer's  Homer  than  Pope's  ;  I 
had  rather  read  Theocritus's  "Eclogues"  than  Gay's; 
and  so  I  had  rather  see  the  "Faun"  of  Praxiteles 
than  Canova's  "  Venus."  All  this  I  said,  steadily, 
of  all  the  modern  sculpture  that  I  saw  till  I  came  to 
Mr.  Story's  study.  I  say  it  still.  But  there  I  was 
willing  to  own  —  and  most  glad,  indeed,  to  own  — 
that  the  nineteenth  century  has  the  ability  to  create 
a  fine  art  of  its  own  in  sculpture,  with  methods  of  its 
own  for  purposes  of  its  own.  There  is  no  need  of 
comparing  these  with  the  antique :  we  do  not  compare 
Tennyson's  "  King  Arthur  "  with  the  "  Odyssey." 
But,  without  comparison,  one  can  say,  (and  how 
gladly  one  does  say  it!)  "Here  is  a  work  which 
belongs  to  our  time,  —  to  our  conception  of  history, 
to  our  conception  of  character,  to  what  we  know  of 
the  unfolding  of  history  and  of  character;  and  it  is  a 


ITALY.  143 

study  wholly  different,  in  its  detail  and  in  its  result, 
from  what  the  study  of  the  Grecian  schools,  or  of  any 
schools  but  those  of  the  nineteenth  century,  would  or 
could  have  elaborated." 

Cleopatra  has  thrown  her  last  die  ;  and  she  has 
lost  the  game.  The  game  was  the  world.  She  knows 
she  has  lost  it.  And  she  sits  there,  —  majestic  as 
Cleopatra  still,  and  beautiful  as  Cleopatra  still,  — 
looking  back  into  her  past,  and  forward  upon  the 
future  which  is  so  short  for  her,  as  only  Cleopatra 
can. 

"  Cleopatras  "  enough  had  we  seen  in  different 
picture-galleries,  of  course.  Nay,  there  is  even  a 
recumbent  statue  in  the  Vatican,  —  with  a  fresco  of 
palm-trees  painted  behind,  —  called  "  Cleopatra  "  by 
the  moderns,  as  it  was  not  by  him  who  made  it. 
All  of  these,  so  far  as  I  saw,  are  of  that  extremely 
disagreeable  type  of  woman,  —  large,  coarse,  and 
muscular,  —  which,  for  want  of  better  compliment, 
is  generally  called  "  handsome."  The  "  Venus  "  at 
the  Capitol  is  such  another.  I  suppose  there  are, 
or  have  been,  such  women  in  the  south  of  Europe  : 
I  have  seen  many  such,  of  the  same  Keltic  race,  who 
came  from  Ireland.  All  of  these  Cleopatras,  again, 
so  far  as  I  saw  them,  had  no  duties  to  perform  to 
man  or  society,  but  the  placing  asps  on  their  white 
bosoms,  and  looking  simple  as  they  did  so.  Now, 
the  real  Cleopatra  had  a  great  deal  more  to  do,  and 
did  it ;  had  to  be  a  great  deal  more,  and  was. 


144         NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

Among  other  things,  she  was  the  end  of  antiquity. 
The  empire  of  Rome  dated  back  some  seven  paltry 
centuries  when  it  crushed  her;  but  Rome  was  a  child, 
compared  with  Egypt.  Cleopatra's  empire  of  Egypt 
(where  she  was  last  queen)  ran  back  —  who  shall 
say  how  many  scores  of  centuries  ?  Israel,  at  her 
side,  claimed  some  antiquity,  —  enough  to  be  just 
crumbling  in  its  sere  old  age ;  but  the  dynasties 
behind  Cleopatra  had  run  on  for  centuries  upon 
centuries  when  they  welcomed  Abraham  and  Sarah, 
and  afterwards  when  they  gave  all  Israel  her 
home.  Egypt  is  the  one  visible  tie  to  the  old 
world  of  Cleopatra's  time.  Her  name  is  carved 
on  monuments  like  those  of  Menes,  in  the  same 
characters  as  those  in  which  Menes'  name  was 
carved  near  forty  centuries  before.  And  now, 
because  she  has  deserted  her  lover  in  a  battle,  —  be- 
cause the  forces  of  Augustus  are  closing  up  around 
her,  —  the  dynasty  of  Egypt  ceases,  and  all  this  is 
at  an  end ;  and  she  knows  that,  as  she  sits  there. 
There  is  no  Egyptian  king  or  queen  after  her.  She 
is  the  end  of  antiquity.  She  feels  it  as  no  one  else  in 
the  world  felt  it  then.  "We,  who  know  what  came 
after,  can  represent  her  feeling  of  it  as  could  no  one 
of  her  own  time. 

Or  if,  forgetting  Egypt  for  a  minute,  she  only  runs 
back  on  her  own  life,  —  on  that  list  of  woman's  vic- 
tories which  has  ended  in  such  a  woman's  failure, — 
Pompey;  Julius  Cesar;  Herod  (our  Herod,  who  killed 


ITALY.  145 

the  infants  in  his  dotage) ;  Lepidus,  perhaps ;  and  at 
last  this  finest  gentleman  in  the  world,  Marc  Antony, 
—  have  sued  for  her  smile,  "  have  weighed  her 
against  the  world ;  "  and  of  each  of  these  world- 
masters  she  has  been  mistress  till  now.  And  now 
will  Octavius  kneel,  perhaps,  where  they  have  knelt  ? 
He  pretends  he  will ;  but  that  is  nothing.  You  see 
all  that  is  over,  as  you  look  upon  the  statue.  All  is 
over  with  which  she  ever  had  any  thing  to  do ;  and 
she  knows  it  all  over.  Yet  she  must  look  back 
upon  it  all,  and  forward  too. 

So  she  sits  there  ;  not  a  pretty  girl,  with  a  girl's 
form  and  features,  but  a  woman,  —  who  has  done  all 
this  and  been  all  this,  —  with  a  woman's  figure  and 
a  woman's  beauty.  And  do  you  remember,  my 
friend  fond  of  history,  —  as  you  look,  do  you  remem- 
ber, —  that  she  is  an  African  woman  ?  The  little  jet 
of  Greek  blood,  which  Ptolemy  brought  into  this 
dynasty  three  centuries  ago,  is  only  the  smallest 
fraction  of  this  Egyptian's  life,  —  not  the  hundredth 
part  of  it,  nor  the  two  -  hundredth  part.  A  line  of 
Egyptian  mothers  for  ten  generations  have  made  her 
wholly  Egyptian,  — r-  in  this  raving  hot  blood  of  hers  ; 
in  this  passionate  temper;  and  in  the  whole  quality, 
even,  of  her  mind.  It  was  no  pretty  Greek  beauty 
that  worked  such  havoc  with  such  men  as  those. 
You  are  looking,  my  dear  friend,  on  an  African 
queen,  —  the  first  since  Sesostris  to  hold  sway  over 
the  conquered  heroes  of  Europe ;  and  her  sway  is 

10 


146         NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

broken  now,  and  Europe  is  thundering  at  the  gates 
of  her  citadel.  You  have  the  same  old  story  of 
Africa, —  always  outwitted  by  Asia,  always  outfought 
by  Europe,  —  as  you  look  on  this  despair. 

Do  you  know,  again,  just  why  the  story  of  that 
despair  is  not  written  in  your  Bible  ?  Do  you  know 
why  you  did  not  read  it  at  your  mother's  knee  ?  Do 
you  know  that  Cleopatra,  who  wanted  to  be  Empress 
of  the  World,  had  wanted  first  to  reign  at  Jerusalem, 
and  be  Queen  of  Judah  ?  When  in  her  heyday, 
she  and  Herod  met,  —  Herod  the  Great ;  and,  so  far 
as  a  selfish  brute  like  him  could  love  a  woman,  he 
fell  in  love  with  her.  She,  who  was  to  be  Antony's 
mistress,  fooled  Herod  for  a  while  ;  and  what  did 
she  want  of  him  ?  What  did  she  ask  Antony  for, 
just  afterwards  ?  Only  for  that  little  province  (what 
did  he  care  for  it  ?)  of  Judah.  If  he  would  only  let 
her  ' e  annex  "  to  Egypt  the  land  which  the  Egyptian 
had  not  held  since  the  days  of  Rehoboam !  Egypt 
and  Judah  have  been  strangely  tied  sometimes,  and 
strangely  parted  :  might  they  not  be  tied  again  ? 
Who  shall  say  why  Antony  said  "No"?  He  did 
say  "  No  :  "  Herod  remained  King  of  Judah  till  the 
Child  was  born  !  Her  contribution  to  that  Child's 
history  is  not  written,  therefore,  in  the  history  of 
Jerusalem.  She  and  hers  end  the  Old :  they  do  not 
begin  the  New.  When  she  puts  the  asp  upon  her 
breast,  the  world  will  be  at  peace  :  — 

"  No  war  or  battle-sound 
Is  heard  the  world  around." 


ITALY.  147 

Octavius  marches  through  Jerusalem,  as  he  returns 
successful  from  Egypt ;  and  Jerusalem,  coming  out 
to  welcome  him,  is  the  first  city  that  salutes  him 
as  master  of  the  world. 

Then  is  it  that  he  shuts  the  gates  of  Janus  ;  and 
then  is  it,  because  Antony  and  Cleopatra  are  dead, 
that  The  Preparation  is  ended.  The  New  World 
may  begin.  "  The  chariot- wheels  of  Rome  have 
smoothed  the  highway  for  the  world's  Lord." 

This  is  the  Cleopatra  whom  Mr.  Story  shows  to  us, 
after  all  is  really  over,  but  before  the  last  moment  comes. 
He  represents,  as  I  have  said,  not  a  girl,  but  a  woman, 
with  a  woman's  beauty  and  a  woman's  form.  Again  : 
she  is  not  a  Greek,  but  an  Egyptian ;  and,  if  you  will 
consent  that  Egypt  shall  typify  Africa  for  you,  you 
may  make  this  the  symbol  of  Africa's  despair.  Again  : 
she  is  not  draped  by  mere  lay-figure  study,  or  search 
for  oddity  or  the  picturesque,  but  after  careful  analy- 
sis of  those  grotesque  designs  which  the  tombs  of 
Beni  Hassan  and  all  the  Egyptian  mummy-cases  and 
sculptures  torment  us  with,  and  which,  till  an  artist 
explains  them  for  you,  seem  inexplicable.  Here 
they  are  simple,  elegant,  and  beautiful.  Of  this  sta- 
tue, I  have  said  that  it  is  not  an  antique,  nor  in  the 
style  of  an  antique.  It  rather  shows  the  way  in 
which  our  time  can  regard  history.  The  contempora- 
ries of  Cleopatra  could  not  have  made  this  statue. 
To  take  merely  the  points  I  have  alluded  to.  They 
did  not  know  that  the  fall  of  Cleopatra  was  the  criti- 


148          NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

cal  historical  type  of  the  fall  of  all  old  dynasties. 
They  did  not  know,  that,  in  the  peace  which  then 
began,  the  Prince  of  Peace  was  to  be  born.  And 
these  are  but  external  facts.  The  whole  temper  of 
antiquity  had  in  it  so  much  of  her  own  despair,  that 
they  could  not  appreciate  it  as  we  do.  The  best 
of  them  had  so  little  to  look  forward  to,  that  they 
could  not  mark  her  failure,  her  consciousness  of  fail- 
ure, and  her  question  of  what  could  follow  such 
wreck,  as  we  can.  Nay,  as  to  that,  we  have  so  little 
shaken  off  what  heathenism  there  is  clinging  round 
us,  that  we  do  but  begin  to  appreciate  now  the  little- 
ness of  kingdoms  which  rely  on  battles  and  fleets  and 
emperors  and  diplomacies  for  their  victories.  Yet 
this  "  Cleopatra,"  as  she  broods  there,  thinks  of  that 
also.  Nor  has  any  age  till  ours  considered  this 
constant  tragedy  of  Africa,  —  slave  either  of  Asia's 
wisdom  or  of  Europe's  force.  I  dare  not  say,  indeed, 
that  ours  has. 

I  must  qualify  my  adhesion  to  Mr.  Hawthorne,  by 
a  word  as  to  Mr.  Gibson's  theory  of  coloring  his  sta- 
tues. Not  that  I  mean  to  argue  such  a  point ;  but 
because  I  had  misapprehended  the  question,  and 
suppose  that  other  Americans  may.  I  am  not  going 
to  discuss,  either,  the  question  of  nude  statuary 
wrought  by  moderns. 

Let  it  be  understood,  however,  that  this  tinting  of 
marble  which  Mr.  Gibson  pleads  for  and  illustrates  is 


ITALY.  149 

no  copying  of  "local  color  "  wherever  it  exists,  in 
drapery  or  in  flesh,  or  eye  or  hair.  You  get  no 
figure-head,  no  wax-image,  nor  any  thing  like  them. 
It  is  simply  the  throwing  over  the  parts -of  the  marble 
which  represent  flesh,  a  glow  as  from  a  warm  sunset, 
uniform  upon  the  whole,  but  making  the  marble  seem 
warm  instead  of  cold,  as,  in  our  familiar  language,  we 
properly  enough  describe  such  impressions.  They 
show  the  "  Venus  "  with  a  good  deal  of  skill.  You  are 
led  about  through  different  workshops,  where  your 
eye  is  toned  down  by  plaster  casts,  by  chips  of  white 
marble,  marble  dust,  and  even  whitewash  on  the 
walls.  Thus  prepared,  you  are  led  into  a  chamber 
of  finished  works,  where  is  still  the  same  white  glare. 
You  have  seen  the  "  Venus  "  in  plaster  :  you  see  her 
now  in  marble,  uncolored.  The  figure  is  exquisite, 
and  you  think  you  are  satisfied ;  when  a  curtain  is 
drawn,  and  you  see  her  sister,  alive  and  not  dead, 
triumphant  with  her  gold  apple,  instead  of  shivering 
in  affected  triumph  ;  because  she  is  ruddy  and 
warm,  and  not  blue  or  cold.  I  believe  the  first  sen- 
sation and  sentiment  are  always  those  of  relief  and 
pleasure.  I  know  that  afterwards  one  torments  him- 
self with  questions,  —  whether  this  is  legitimate ; 
nay,  whether  it  is  right. 

Let  not  the  Paris  judge,  however,  till  he  sees, 
between  the  blue  "Venus"  and  her  ruddy  sister;  for 
the  white  seems  blue  and  cold  to  you  the  instant  any 
thing  warmer  is  suggested.  And  to  you,  dear  Paris, 


150          NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

who  have  not  the  chance  to  see,  let  me  say,  that  all 
this  color,  your  plaster-trained  taste  is  so  afraid  of,  is 
but  this  tinge  on  the  flesh ;  though  there  is,  perhaps, 
a  little  stripe  of  blue  to  indicate  the  edges  of  the 
drapery,  and  a  suspicion  of  gold  upon  the  apple.  I 
believe  the  iris  of  the  eye  has  the  faintest  shade  of 
blue  also.  But  these  are  trifles.  The  real  question, 
then,  is  this  :  If  next  week,  in  some  new  quarry  at 
Seravezza  or  in  Rutland,  a  vein  of  marble  more  flesh- 
like  in  color  should  be  found  than  any  used  to-day, 
would  not  every  artist  gladly  use  it  in  his  busts  of 
living  men  and  women?  If  not,  why  do  we  not 
work  in  black  marble  or  in  green  ?  We  work  in 
white,  because  that  is  the  nearest  approach  we  have 
to  the  color  of  the  human  flesh  ;  and  shows  with  least 
alloy,  therefore,  our  success  in  form,  which  it  is 
sculpture's  duty  to  display.  In  fact,  we  do  select  the 
marbles  which  have  a  faint  yellow  tinge,  in  preference 
to  those  which  are  chalky,  and  of  what  we  well  call 
"dead  white,"  in  color.  This  is  the  real  preference 
given  to  the  best  Italian  marbles  now,  and  why  we 
enjoy,  in  the  antiques,  the  tinge  approaching  the  hu- 
man tinges,  by  which  twenty  centuries  have  changed 
them  from  the  white  of  the  quarry.  Granted  this,  that, 
if  we  had  a  natural  marble  the  color  of  Mr.  Gibson's 
tint,  we  should  use  it,  I  cannot  be  persuaded  that  any 
aesthetic  canon  forbids  us  to  use  the  marble  tinted  by 
Mr.  Gibson.  I  had  as  lief  have  my  marble  tinted 
by  yellow  ochre  out  of  the  ground,  as  if  Nature  had 


ITALY.  151 

tinted  it  with  the  yellow  ochre  in  the  ground.  I 
had  as  lief  have  it  tinted  in  an  hour,  as  by  the  mellow- 
ing influences  wrought  on  antique  statues  by  two 
thousand  years  of  dirt  and  moisture.  Nay,  I  go  so  far 
as  to  say  that  I  had  as  lief  have  it  tinted  by  tobacco 
as  by  oxide  of  iron.  What  is  time,  after  all  ? 

I  believe  every  one  recognizes  an  aesthetic  distinc- 
tion between  work  put  on  drapery  and  work  put  on 
the  flesh,  in  sculpture.  I  do  not  see  why  the  same 
aesthetic  distinction  does  not  justify  the  difference  in 
tinge.  In  Mr.  Gibson's  "  Venus,"  the  drapery  is  left 
in  the  cold  white  —  blue-white  it  seems  —  of  the 
marble,  with  just  a  blue  line  drawn  along  the  sup- 
posed edge  of  the  raiment.  I  am  sure,  that  at  the 
first  instant,  whatever  comes  afterwards,  this  distinc- 
tion between  the  representation  of  flesh  and  of  mere 
cloth  is  a  satisfaction. 

The  "  Venus  "  of  the  Porta  Portesi  —  the  "  new 
Venus "  —  had  been  excavated  the  year  before  we 
were  in  Rome.  No  American,  alas  !  had  the  ten 
thousand  dollars  which  was  enough  to  buy  the  exqui- 
site creature  ;  and  she  was  snapped  up  by  the  Russian 
bear.  Let  us  hope  he  will  give  her  a  rose  at  least 
once  a  year.  But  we  saw  the  casts  of  her ;  and 
I  will  say  to  anybody  who  has  forty-five  dollars,  that 
for  that  he  can  buy  one  of  these  recent  casts  of  a 
"  Venus  "  finer  than  the  Medicean,  —  finer,  that  is, 
"  as  it  seems  to  me,"  as  Dr.  Walker  always  says  so 
grandly. 


152          NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

ROME,  Nov.  14. 

.  .  .  We  went  to  see  the  new  "  Venus."  *  We 
had  taken  a  drive  of  three  miles  last  week,  in 
ineffectual  search  for  a  cast;  and,  lo  !  here  were 
three  almost  at  our  doors. 

It  is  very  beautiful.  In  the  marble,  I  can  well 
believe  she  was  fairer  than  the  Florentine.  She  is 
taller,  her  head  more  raised,  and  a  little  larger. 
She  is  American,  as  the  Florentine  is,  —  light- 
limbed  and  graceful,  without  the  heavy,  fat  look  of 
the  "  Venuses"  of  these  people,  —  oil-fed,  and  unused 
to  action.  She  is  graceful,  and  can  move,  and  means 
to  move ;  which  is  where  she  differs  from  most  sta- 
tuary of  the  moderns. 

Now,  of  sculpture,  ancient  or  modern,  I  will  say 
nothing  more.  Let  me  copy  a  secret  from  my  jour- 
nal, and  I  will  take  my  hand  from  the  reader's 
button. 

"  William  Story  read  us  his  paper  on  his  discovery 
or  rediscovery  of  the  '  Canon  of  Form,'  which  was 
used  in  Egyptian  and  Greek  art.  It  is  partially,  and 
only  partially,  preserved  in  classical  times ;  and  par- 
tially, and  only  partially,  reproduced  in  the  resurrec- 
tion of  art.  His  paper  is  wonderfully  interesting 
and  convincing :  his  illustrations  in  his  study  are  as 
much  so.  He  promised  me  solemnly  to  send  it  out 


*  Found  under  ten  feet  of  earth,  November,  1858,  near  the  Porta 
Portesi. 


ITALY.  153 

to  be  printed.  I  told  him,  if  he  did  not,  I  would 
print  it  from  these  notes ;  giving  to  him  the  credit, 
which  some  one  would  certainly  be  stealing  from  him 
some  day." 

He  has  not  published  it  up  till  November,  1860  ; 
yet  he  is  showing  it  to  every  such  wanderer  as  I. 
I  have  a  great  mind  to  save  him  from  piracy  by 
printing  it  here. 

Nov.  14. 

Afterwards  we  went  to  see  "  Beatrice  Cenci."  I 
confess  I  had  not  been  much  disappointed  at  the  idea 
of  leaving  Rome  without  seeing  her,  —  the  story  is  so 
sad,  and  the  copies  are  so  silly  ;  but  I  am  very  glad  I 
went.  The  copies  are  simply  vulgar  and  inexpres- 
sive. The  picture  itself,  perfectly  preserved,  is  a 
sweet  young  girl ;  eyes  swollen  with  crying  all  night ; 
lips  almost  smiling,  she  knows  not  why ;  with  no 
maturity  of  grief,  as  in  a  "  Mary  Mother  "  or  "  Mag- 
dalen "  or  a  "  Cleopatra,"  but  with  all  a  girl's 
misery. 

In  the  afternoon,  I  found  a  photograph  taken  from 
the  picture  itself.  I  know  but  one  other  so  taken  in 
Home, — the  "Aurora"  of  Guido.  Color  is  impossible, 
so  that  they  seldom  succeed  :  but,  in  this  picture, 
there  is  scarce  any  color ;  and  this  almost  exactly 
renders  the  original,  therefore.  They  paint  any  num- 
ber of  India-ink  copies  to  be  photographed.  Most  of 
the  photographs  which  profess  to  be  from  paintings 


154          NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

are  from  these  ;  but  any  photographer  knows  how 
real  blue  takes,  and  how  red. 

In  driving  to  the  Barberini  Palace,  where  the 
"Cenci"  is,  we  stopped  at  the  Fountain  of  Trevi  to 
drink  some  of  the  waters ;  there  being  a  tradition,  that 
whoever  drinks  of  it  will  surely  come  to  Rome  again. 
We  have  it  at  dinner  daily ;  but  it  seemed  to  make 
matters  rather  more  certain  to  come  directly  to  the 
spot.  A  much  prettier  fountain,  which  our  coach- 
man declared  was  an  antique,  is  in  the  Ghetto,  near 
the  Cenci  Palace,  in  a  place  called  the  Piazza  di 
Tarturaghi,  or  Tortoises.  Four  "Venuses,"  in  grace- 
ful, playful  forms,  are  holding  up  a  basin,  on  the  edges 
of  which  four  tortoises  play,  Why  are  tortoises 
emblems  of  Venus?  (Queer  connection  with  turtles.} 
These  statues  are  bronze. 

The  Ghetto  consists  of  rather  narrower  streets  than 
the  rest  of  Rome ;  rather  worse  crowded.  Some 
of  the  streets  are  so  narrow,  you  cannot  drive  through 
them.  Everywhere  the  Jewish  face.  Story  says 
this  colony  of  Jews  can  be  traced  back  to  the  very 
time  of  Titus. 

And  so  good-bye  to  Rome.  No,  my  friend :  not 
one  word  of  the  Campagna,  of  the  Pincian,  of  the 
Albani,  of  the  Borghese,  of  the  Catacombs,  of  the 
Forum,  of  the  Coliseum.  Go  see  them  yourself,  and 
you  will  know  why. 

Only  this  of  the  Forum :  when  that  maiden's -hair 
was  green  which  you  see  in  black  where  this  chap- 


ITALY. 


155 


ter  begins,  it  grew,  not  in  a  shady  nook  under  the 
spray  of  Kauterskill,  but  between  two  stones  in  the 
Forum  of  Rome.  Was  it  where  Virginius  stabbed 
Virginia  ? 

By   the    Portesi    Gate,    where    they  found    the 
"  Venus,"  to  the  train. 

The  engine  "  San  Filippo  Apostolo  "  dragged  us  to 
the  sea,  over  that  desert. 
This  was  almost  a  sacred 
joke,  but  not  quite.  It 
was  San  Filippo  Diacono 
who  found  the  traveller  in 
the  desert,  and  led  him 
in  the  way  he  needed  to 
go  in ;  and  left  him  when 
they  had  come  to  water. 

At  Civita  Vecchia,  the 
"  Mongebello,"  Neapoli- 
tan steamer.  Much  wait- 
ing in  the  rain,  in  sight  of 
the  tower  which  bears  a 
clock,  which  has  no  mi- 
nute-hand ;  for  they  take 
an  hour  here,  where  the 
rest  of  the  world  takes  a 
minute.  Those  are  four 
iron  rods  which  hold  up  the  cross  against  the  sky. 


156 


NINETY    DAYS'  WORTH    OF    EUROPE. 


FROM  ROME  TO  ENGLAND. 


T  the  outset  of  this  glimpse  of 
Europe  of  mine,  my  plan  was 
to  spend  two  or  three  months 
in  England,  varied  1by  a  few 
days  in  Paris,  and  perhaps 
a  return  to  London  through 
Switzerland.  But  when,  in  England,-!  found  that 
one  can  go  from  London  to  Rome  in  seventy  hours 
(three  days  and  nights),  it  was  impossible  to  resist  the 


FROM    ROME    TO    ENGLAND.  157 

magnetism  of  the  centre  of  the  world.  The  reader 
has  seen  that  I  took  more  than  three  days  to  go  there. 
I  returned ,  however,  more  rapidly;  and  I  shall  not 
detain  him  long  with  the  notes  which  he  who  runs 
can  write  on  such  a  journey.  I  took  the  Neapolitan 
steamer  from  Civita  Vecchia  directly  to  Marseilles. 
Spending  a  day  only  in  Marseilles,  and  part  of 
another  in  Lyons,  I  spent  two  in  that  charming 
American  city  of  Geneva.  Spending  then  a  week  in 
Paris,  I  crossed  by  Calais  and  Dover  to  England, 
and  arrived  in  London  on  the  30th  of  November.  I 
had  left  on  the  16th  of  October.  At  Geneva,  I  met 
winter.  Up  to  that  time,  except  on  the  Alps,  we  had 
scarcely  thought  of  a  fire.  After  that  time,  a  fire  was 
a  thing  of  course. 

I  prefer  to  devote  the  rest  of  this  little  book  chiefly 
to  impressions  of  England  and  Ireland ;  and,  there- 
fore, only  copy  here  a  few  fragments  from  letters 
written  on  the  road. 

STEAMER  "  MONGEBELLO,"  Nov.  16. 

We  have  a  deck-load  of 
"third-class  passengers,"  one 
of  whom  is  this  girl  with  a 
droll  Italian  hat.  She  looks 
like  an  Indian  in  her  cos- 
tume ;  and  may  be,  perhaps, 
a  Gipsy.  There  is  a  group 
of  King  Bomba's  soldiers  (whose  term  of  service  is 


158 


over,  I  suppose),  on  their  way  home  to  their  native 
Germany.  They  all  sit  grimly  under  the  rain  of 
the  afternoon,  with  the  aspect  of  endurance  which 
seems  to  be  the  glory  of  all  "peasantry."  Thank 
God  that  we  have  none  ! 

The  Italian  shore,  volcanic,  and.  very  bold  at  that, 
showed  itself  along  our  course.  At  night,  starlight 
broke  out.  We  passed  Monte  Christo  at  half-past 
seven,  and  Elba  at  half-past  eight :  — 

"  Insula,  inexhaustis  Chalybum  generosa  metallis;"  — 

and,  since  Virgil,  "  generous "  of  how  much  more  in 
her  contribution  to  history  ! 

"  So  homeward  fared  beneath  a  star-lit  sky, 

Brooding  brim-full  of  light  above  the  sea; 

And  passed  among  the  lava-rocks  which  lie, 

Where,  from  the  west,  they  shield  fair  Italy ; 

Passed  Monte  Christo,  mystic  grot !  whence  he, 

The  new  Aladdin,  mystic  treasure  drew; 

And  Elba,  more  mysterious,  whence  there  flew 

His  eagle  last  to  awe  the  world  again; 
Whose  lengthening  shadow  awes  it  now,  as  then. 

And  how  one  longs  for  points,  though  s:mall  as  these, 
Giddy  until  he  finds  them !     How  one  craves, 
On  History's  vast  blue,  amid  her  seas, 
Some  rocks,  not  heaving  in  her  lying  waves ; 
Even  the  rock  the  gay  romancer  leaves 
To  tell  his  fairy  tale  in  every  tongue ; 
The  rock  from  which  Antseus  rested,  sprung, 
When  last  his  thunders  on  his  foes  he  hurled ! 
Give  man  his  place  to  stand,  and  man  can  move  the  world." 

We  were  thirty- one  hours  from  Rome  to  Mar- 
seilles. Passed  the  Chateau  d'lf  as  we  entered,  but 


FROM    ROME    TO    ENGLAND.  159 

saw  no  corpses  thrown  from  the  tower  in  bags  into 
the  sea. 

There  is  something  very  droll  in  the  sense  of 
coming  back  to  civilization,  which  I  felt  even  in  Mar- 
seilles, and  how  much  more  in  Paris  !  To  be  in  a 
place  where  people  walk  on  the  sidewalks,  instead  of 
the  middle  of  the  streets ;  whe^e  there  are  horses  and 
trucks  engaged  in  commercial  processes  (for  at  Kome, 
besides  the  cabs  and  occasional  market- wagon,  there 
is  no  sign  of  wheeled  transport);  where  there  is  not  a 
perpetual  ringing  of  bells  ;  and  where  the  houses  look 
as  if  they  had  had  a  beginning,  —  all  this  is  marked 
enough,  after  a  month  of  Italy.  Yet  a  good  many 
things  give  Marseilles  a  savage  look ;  most  of  all, 
perhaps,  the  Arabs  and  other  tokens  of  Algiers. 

GENEVA  (which  is  to  say,  be-Gix  WAVE;  or,  in  Latin, 
JANVA  AQVA;  all  languages  being  the  same),  Nov.  20. 

The  ride  from  Marseilles  to  Lyons  is  very  interest- 
ing. I  took  a  whole  day  for  it ;  leaving  Marseilles  at 
half-past  ten,  and  arriving  at  Lyons  (two  hundred 
and  odd  miles)  at  six,  P.M.  We  passed  through  a 
desert  volcanic  country,  on  a  great  deal  of  which  no- 
thing will  grow  but  sheep ;  but  I  looked  vainly  for 
men  on  stilts,  though  there  were  plenty  of  bandit- 
looking  shepherds  wrapped  in  their  cloaks.  The 
Landes  (where  stilts  are  aboriginal)  belong  farther 
west.  It  was  very  cold,  and  I  heard  afterwards  that 
in  Paris  they  had  snow ;  but  we  saw  none. 


160          NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

Lyons,  like  this  place,  and  I  think  Marseilles,  has 
been  increasing  and  improving  marvellously  in  the 
last  twenty  years.  From  the  guide-book,  you  would 
suppose  that  it  used  to  be  a  queer  old  Edinburghish 
sort  of  place  ;  whereas  there  is  now  appended  to 
the  narrow-streeted,  high-storied  town  a  magnificent 
new  city.  I  saw  what  I  could  of  it  before  half-past 
ten  yesterday  morning,  and  then  took  train  to  Ge- 
neva. I  wish  I  could  describe  the  beauty  and 
marvels  of  the  road.  After  working  up  the  Ehone 
a  little  way,  the  course  of  the  river  becomes  too 
crooked ;  and  the  road  boldly  dashes  east  through  the 
spur  of  the  Jura,  around  which  the  poor  Rhone  is 
painfully  winding.  It  crosses  this  range  by  fol- 
lowing up  the  Valley  of  the  Aiii ;  and  none  of  the 
mountain  gorges  which  we  know  show  such  startling 
effects,  because  none  of  those  we  know  are  so  purely 
volcanic  as  these  ridges.  Suddenly  emerging  from 
the  clefts  it  has  dashed  through,  the  road  descends 
to  the  Rhone  again,  turns  to  the  north,  following  up 
the  river,  where  it  goes  south.  For  many  miles  the 
Rhone  is  a  mere  canon,  and  seems  to  give  no  help 
to  the  road.  You  ride  along  the  edge  of  cliffs,  with 
the  river,  seen  or  unseen,  in  the  depths  below.  In 
this  way  you  pass  what  is  called  La  Perte  du  Rhone, 
the  lost  Rhone  ;  where,  when  the  water  is  as  low  as  it 
is  now,  the  river  wholly  disappears  under  ground. 
That  precise  spot  is  not  in  sight  from  the  train :  but 
you  can  see  it  where  it  is  only  sixteen  feet  wide, 


FROM    ROME    TO    ENGLAND.  161 

having  been  squeezed  into  that  compass,  though  it 
carries  all  the  waters  of  Lake  Geneva ;  and  when  it 
starts  with  them,  at  this  city,  twenty-five  miles  above 
its  "  loss  "  is  a  deep  stream  a  hundred  and  thirteen  feet 
wide.  Just  above  this  place  is  the  defile  described 
by  Caesar  :  "Angustum  et  difficile  inter  montem  Juram 
et  flumen  Rhodanum,  qua  mx  singuli  cum  ducerentur" 
It  is  defended  by  a  fort  of  Vauban's  planning ;  and 
it  is  under-run  by  a  tunnel  of  thirty-nine  hundred 
metres,  through  which  we  passed  !  Poor  Caesar  with 
his  singuli  cum!  To  be  sure,  we  did  not  go  two 
by  two ! 

But,  again,  I  want  all  my  paper  and  all  my  time  to 
write  about  Geneva.  Mt.  Blanc  is  not  in  sight. 
It  is  a  grim,  cloudy  day ;  but  I  have  had  a  charm- 
ing day  of  it.  After  going  to  church,  I  took  a  long 
walk  up  the  lake  and  round  the  town ;  returning  after 
two  hours  by  a  wholly  different  side,  quite  after  your 
heart  and  mine.  It  seems  so  homelike  here  !  —  no 
soldiers,  no  priests,  and  regular  Yankee  "  go-ahead  " 
in  every  thing.  The  revolution  of  1846  or  '48  de- 
termined the  destruction  of  the  old  fortifications. 
Some  Back-Bay  commission  is  at  work  on  the  ground 
thus  gained;  and,  as  it  gives  them  plenty  of  land 
and  plenty  of  stone,  they  are  making  splendid 
additions  to  the  city,  which,  meanwhile,  is  grow- 
ing in  population,  and  apparently  in  wealth,  very 
rapidly.  Some  of  the  manufactures  call  artists  of 
the  highest  ability  to  reside  here. 

11 


162          NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

[From  a  Letter  written  the  next  day.] 

I  am  charmed  with  Geneva ;  not  that  I  have  seen 
Mt.  Blanc.  A  heavy  cloud,  threatening  snow,  has 
hung  over  the  valley  all  the  time  I  have  been  here ; 
and,  when  I  asked  Mr.  M —  when  this  would  clear 
away,  he  answered  very  simply,  that  it  mightre  main 
all  winter,  though  they  generally  saw  Mt.  Blanc  in 
January.  I  could  not  stay  till  it  was  clear.  I  gave 
you  some  account  of  the  exquisite  Valley  of  the 
Rhone.  The  city  itself,  always  beautiful,  has  lately 
been  a  good  deal  enlarged ;  and  they  have  built  the 
most  charming  walks  and  promenades  along  the  side 
of  the  lake.  It  is  more  like  one  of  our  towns  than 
any  place  I  have  seen  in  Europe.  In  a  long  walk  I 
took  in  the  environs  on  Sunday,  there  were  places 
where  it  fairly  seemed  as  if  I  were  at  home.  You 
see  it  is  the  same  thing,  —  a  manufacturing  and  com- 
mercial republic,  with  plenty  of  old  families,  with  great 
wealth  and  a  good  deal  of  culture,  but  with  no  here- 
ditary aristocracy  and  no  army;  Protestant  to  the 
back-bone,  even  to  Unitarianism,  and  very  proud  of 
its  Protestantism.  Think  of  a  town  not  much  larger 
than  Hartford,  say  with  thirty-five  thousand  people, 
which  has  collected  the  enormous  wealth  of  these 
republican  princes,  has  the  taste  and  enthusiasm  for 
science,  which  we  associate,  I  think,  always  with 
Geneva  (and  rightly),  and  you  may  imagine  what 
they  have  made  of  it  in  three  hundred  years  since 
Calvin's  time. 


FKOM    ROME    TO    ENGLAND.  163 

MACON,  Nov.  20. 

My  train  stopped  an  hour  at  Macon,  in  a  station 
just  outside  the  town.  I  boldly  elected  to  see  the 
town  rather  than  to  lunch ;  and,  on  foot  marching  in, 
asked  the  first  feminine  old  gingerbread  and  tart  sell- 
er whom  I  found  in  the  street  which  was  the  way  to 
the  house  where  Lamartine  was  born.  It  was  a  long 
way ;  but  she  knew,  and  directed  me  :  and,  to  Lamar- 
tine's  honor  be  it  said,  three  laboring-men,  whom  I 
accosted  afterwards  for  more  precise  directions,  knew 
where  the  house  was,  and  gave  me  my  route.  One  of 
them  was  an  Italian.  Yet  Lamartine  has  not  lived 
there  since  he  was  a  child.  A  surly  German  inti- 
mated that  he  neither  knew,  nor  wanted  to  know,  in 
the  tone  of  Dennis  Maher's  celebrated  reply,  when 
he  said,  "  The  less  a  man  knows,  the  better."  As  for 
the  house  itself,  it  was  like  the  source  of  the  Nile  : 
the  quest  was  worth  more  than  the  object,  —  one  of  a 
block  of  four  houses  looking  out  on  the  old-fashioned 
little  square  which  he  describes  in  the  preface  to 
the  "  Confidences."  Let  me  be  candid,  and  confess 
that  I  should  have  remembered  nothing  of  the  descrip- 
tion but  for  the  quotation  in  this  charming  French 
guide-book ;  so  completely  couleur  de  rose,  even  to 
the  sanguinaria  tint  of  its  color,  —  so  much  more 
attractive,  within  and  without,  —  than  the  precise, 
phlegmatic,  and  brick-dusty  Murray. 

Of  course,  I  steered  back  to  the  station  by  a  differ- 
ent route  from  what  I  sailed  out  by;  and,  as  the 


164 


NINETY    DAYS     WORTH    OF    EUROPE. 


streets  would  not  always 
tack  when  I  wanted  to,  I 
had  to  return  in  double- 
quick  time,  or  miss  my 
train.  As  I  ascended  to 
the  station-house,  I  over- 
took this  little  lady  in  the 
odd  black-lace  head-dress 
of  this  people,  who  panted 
out  an  inquiry,  which  I 
could  not  answer,  if  we 
were  in  time. 


If  1  could  have  written  a  treatise  on  England  after 
a  day  of  Liverpool,  I  could,  of  course,  another  on 
France  after  a  week  at  Paris ;  but,  till  I  write  that 
treatise,  I  shall  omit  such  disquisition.  The  jest  at 
Paris  says,  that  when  Americans  die,  if  they  have 
been  good,  they  go  to  Paris.  It  is  so  certain  that 
the  readers  of  these  pages  are  gentle  enough  to  be 
able  to  go  before  they  die ;  it  is  so  certain,  again, 
that  my  experience  was  only  the  outside  experience 
of  every  traveller  who  has  tried  to  describe  that 
wonderful  kaleidoscope,  —  that  I  neither  attempt 
a  resume  of  the  policy  of  "  this  man,"  as  I  found 
they  called  Napoleon  III.,  nor  a  catalogue  raisonnee 
of  the  Louvre. 

I  described  my  entrance  thus  at  the  time. 


FROM    ROME    TO    ENGLAND.  165 

PARIS,  Nov.  21. 

I  was  fairly  afraid,  at  first,  that  I  could  tell  you  no 
more  of  Paris  than  I  have  of  some  places  from  which 
I  have  written  as  soon  as  I  came  to  my  lodging. 
My  train  arrived,  sure  enough,  at  4.55  matin ;  pas  d 
4.55  soir,  as  my  lying  guide-book  had  said  it  would. 
However,  I  had  slept  very  well  all  night.  You  come 
in  at  a  South-Boston  sort  of  place ;  and  my  plan  was 
to  find  some  inn  there  where  I  could  sleep  till  day. 
But,  though  there  must  be  some  such  places  there, 
the  officials,  and  such  passengers  as  I  consulted, 
agreed,  with  Chinese  pertinacity,  that  this  was  out  of 
the  question;  that  I  must  go  to  Paris  proper;  and 
that  it  was  vain  for  me,  in  the  face  of  all  the  arrange- 
ments they  had  made,  to  do  any  thing  else.  So  I  was 
put  into  the  "  Cock-heron-street "  omnibus  (imagine 
yourself  pronouncing  this  word  always  as  if  spelt 
500),  and  only  plead,  with  my  last  accents,  for  I' hotel  le 
plus  prochain.  We  drove  a  strong  half-hour,  there- 
fore, along  some  new  street  brilliantly  gas-lighted. 
It  was  France-like  that  half  the  people  in  the  coach 
had  never  been  in  Paris  before.  I  made  out  the 
Place  de  la  Bastille,  which  they  did  not ;  and  at  last 
the  omnibus  stopped  at  the  "  Hotel  de  France."  I 
leaped  out ;  but  the  driver  said,  "No : "  I  was  to  go  to 
the  "  Hotel  J.  J.  Rousseau; "  which  had,  indeed,  been 
spoken  of  at  the  gare  (which  is  the  French  for  depot). 
Again  I  represented  that  I  only  cared  to  get  to  bed : 
my  Chinese  friend  declared  that  J.  J.  E.  was  not  far 


166          NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

off.  "  Hotel  de  France  "  looked  odiously  unpromis- 
ing ;  and  1  meekly  returned  to  my  omnibus  as  I  was 
bidden,  supposing  that  all  passengers  from  Geneva 
were  compelled  to  go  to  J.  Jacques  by  virtue  of  the 
name.  Well,  a  nice  little  place  it  proved,  perfectly 
French,  and  perfectly  comfortable.  There  I  went  to 
bed,  and  slept  till  eight ;  and  had  the  best  breakfast  I 
have  had  for  a  month,  —  coffee  comme  a  Paris,  as  the 
English  say ;  and  thence  started  at  nine  to  find  Paris 
in  a  fog. 

I  could  not  see  the  place  any  more  than  you  can  :  I 
could  not  see  across  a  street.  I  was  just  in  the  heart 
of  things.  I  fumbled  my  way  to  the  Louvre,  through 
its  courts  to  the  Seine,  and  could  not  see  the  water 
from  the  parapet.  I  fumbled  back  to  the  Garden  of 
the  Tuileries ;  through  it  to  the  great  avenue  which 
comes  up  here ;  took  an  omnibus  up.  Could  not  see 
a  house  or  a  railing,  more  than  if  I  had  been  in  the 
sea.  But,  as  we  rode,  the  fog  lifted ;  and,  as  I  began 
to  wonder  when  I  should  alight,  behold  a  foot-pas- 
senger by  the  side  of  the  street,  looking  seven  feet 
high  in  the  mist,  but  so  much  in  other  regard  like 
my  travelling  companion  of  the  last  two  months,  that 
I  ventured  to  descend,  and  hail  him ;  and  he,  in 
short,  it  proved  to  be. 

We  walked  up  to  the  Arch  of  Triumph,  and 
climbed  to  the  top  thereof  to  see  what  we  could 
above  the  mist.  Back  here  to  lunch ;  and  then,  the 
fog  having  cleared  away,  we  rode  down  town,  seeing 


FROM    ROME    TO    ENGLAND.  167 

the  wonders  and  beauties  of  all  this  new  architecture, 
and  so  to  the  Louvre.  I  had  said  I  did  not  want  to 
see  another  picture  in  Europe,  and  had  not  meant  to 
go  into  another  gallery ;  but  I  am  very  glad  I  went 
here.  Still  you  do  not  find  that  you  have  the  same 
feeling  in  this  gallery  that  you  do  in  Italy.  In  Italy, 
the  pictures  are  at  home,  and  you  know  they  are  : 
here  they  are  transplanted,  and  you  know  that  too. 
As  there  are  almost  miles  of  these  galleries,  there 
are,  of  course,  some  poor  pictures ;  but  there  are 
also  some  of  the  best  of  the  world.  Their  crack 
room,  which  contains  their  finest  pictures,  is  certainly 
richer  even  than  the  Tribune  at  Florence.  But  I 
will  not  undertake  to  describe  the  Louvre  at  the  end 
of  a  letter. 

THANKSGIVING  DAY,  Thursday,  Nov.  24. 

We  celebrated  Thanksgiving  with  all  the  honors. 
Heard  Mr.  Hoppin  preach  a  good  Thanksgiving  ser- 
mon at  the  American  Chapel ;  and,  a  party  of  Ameri- 
cans, ate  our  Orthodox  turkey  and  squash-pies  in  the 
afternoon.  There  is  an  eating-house  where  the 
Americans  have  trained  Madame  in  the  manufacture 
of  squash-pies.  Americans  not  so  fortunate  as  we,  who 
enjoyed  the  home-hospitalities  of  Paris,  thronged  this 
place  from  an  early  hour,  demanding  steadily  the 
national  Thanksgiving  fare.  Of  course,  the  supply 
was  not  inexhaustible  ;  and  Madame  herself  soon 
appeared  among  her  customers,  reduced  au  desespoir. 

I 


168          NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

"  Why  did  no  one  tell  me  dat  it  was  Tanksgiving 
Day  ?  I  should  have  had  dindon  roti  for  all ! "  As 
it  was,  the  last- comers  had  to  take  the  will  for  the 
deed ;  and,  we  must  suppose,  ate  frogs  and  snails. 

I  had  no  object  more  at  heart,  in  this  European 
tour,  than  the  study  of  the  system  of  religious  or 
ecclesiastical  adminstration  in  large  cities.  In  the 
cities  of  America,  the  business  of  a  clergyman  is 
more  unsystematic  than  will  be  readily  believed. 
At  any  hour  of  the  day  or  night,  anybody  may  call 
upon  him  to  do  any  thing ;  and,  in  many  cases,  this 
call  is  of  such  a  nature  that  he  cannot  refuse,  unless 
it  is  physically  impossible  for  him  to  assent.  If  any 
system  is  ever  wrought  into  the  discharge  of  such 
duties,  it  is  the  work  of  an  individual  minister  only : 
it  is  not  known  to  the  public,  and  does  not  affect  the 
customs  of  the  community. 

We  are  exposed  to  this  want  of  system,  because 
our  large  cities  are  of  recent  growth,  and  still  use 
the  customs,  or  the  want  of  customs,  of  small  towns. 
In  a  small  town,  where  there  are,  perhaps,  not  five 
funeral  services  in  the  year,  it  may  be  safe  to  arrange 
for  these  according  to  the  convenience  of  the  families 
concerned,  without  consulting  the  officiating  minister 
before  he  is  told  when  he  must  be  present.  That' is, 
therefore,  the  custom  of  New  England.  It  is  a  cus- 
tom which  has  been  transferred  to  the  large  cities. 
It  involves,  however,  great  inconveniences  in  a  city 


FROM    ROME    TO    ENGLAND.  169 

where  there  are,  perhaps,  twenty  funeral  services  in 
a  day.  I  name  this  only  as  an  illustration  of  our 
inattention  to  such  details.  I  knew  that  I  should 
find  something  more  systematic  in  the  large  cities 
of  Europe,  where  the  external  forms  of  Christianity 
have  been  administered  so  much  longer. 

M.  Coquerel  was  kind  enough  to  give  me  some 
interesting  information  as  to  the  system  of  work  of 
the  Protestant  ministers  of  Paris,  as  well  as  some 
of  the  documents  which  illustrated  it.  A  good  deal  of 
this  would  be  very  repulsive  to  our  sturdy  congrega- 
tional feeling ;  but  there  is  certainly  a  good  deal 
which  we  shall  have  to  come  to.  We  shall  never 
unite  our  Congregational  churches  into  one  consistory, 
as  the  Reformed  churches  of  Paris  are  united.  Each 
congregation  will  be  sure  to  regulate  its  own  service 
in  its  own  way.  But  for  those  services  to  the  public 
which  each  minister  is  expected  to  attend  outside 
of  his  own  congregation,  some  such  adjustment  as 
is  made  in  the  French  Consistory  must  be  made, 
sooner  or  later,  among  the  ministers  of  a  town  like 
Boston. 

There  are,  in  Paris,  eighteen  clergymen  connected 
with  the  Consistory  of  the  Reformed  Church.  In  the 
immediate  neighborhood,  connected  with  the  same 
Consistory,  are  six  others.  The  duties  of  these 
clergymen  are,  on  the  whole,  not  very  unlike  what 
are  discharged  by  ministers  among  us,  if  we  include 
the  services  of  our  ministers  at  large,  and  services 


170          NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

rendered  in  the  religious  instruction  of  the  young. 
The  Consistory  to  which  they  belong  prints  each 
year  a  little  directory,  which  is  distributed  among 
all  the  Protestant  families ;  which  gives  information, 
in  detail,  as  to  the  ways  in  which  these  twenty-four 
ministers  expect  to  attend  to  the  services  required 
of  them. 

The  first  peculiarity  which  strikes  us  in  this 
programme  or  directory  is,  that  only  ten  religious 
services,  corresponding  to  our  Sunday  services,  are 
maintained  by  the  twenty-two  ministers  who  officiate 
in  and  close  to  Paris.  Two  other  gentlemen,  who 
belong  to  the  Consistory,  maintain  each  his  own 
services  at  Agneux  and  Versailles.  Not  only  is  this 
so,  but,  instead  of  two  or  three  such  services  at  a 
church  on  one  Sunday,  there  is  but  one  in  any  of  the 
Protestant  churches. 

The  second  peculiarity  is,  that  no  preacher  preaches 
more  at  one  church  than  at  another ;  except,  indeed, 
in  some  of  the  suburban  churches.  There  is  a  regular 
rotation  of  pulpit  service.  This  is,  of  course,  wholly 
uncongregational. 

The  next  is,  that  this  rotation  is  carefully  arranged 
at  the  beginning  of  the  year,  and  full  information 
regarding  it  given  to  the  congregations,  —  to  "  the 
faithful"  ("les  fideles"),  as  they  are  called.  In 
the  programme  I  speak  of  is  a  table  printed,  con- 
taining each  service  of  the  year.  It  is  in  this  form 
for  the  three  churches  of  Paris  :  — 


FROM  ROME  TO  ENGLAND. 


171 


"  TABLE  OF  THE  RELIGIOUS  SERVICES. 

"  The  faithful  are  urgently  invited  to  observe  the 
following  rules  :  — 

1.  To  be  present  at  the  reading  of  the  word  of 
God,  which  opens  the  service. 

2.  If  they  arrive  during  the  prayer,  to  wait  till  it 
is  done  before  they  seek  their  places. 

3.  Not  to  retire  till  the  end  of  the  service  and 
after  the  benediction. 

4.  To  remain,  after  the  benediction,  a  moment  in 
silence  and  reflection. 

"  The  service  begins,  in  the  three  churches  at  pre- 
cisely half-past  eleven." 


CHURCH  OF  THE 

CHURCH  OF 

CHURCH  OF 

ORATOIRE, 

STE.  MARIE, 

PENTEMONT, 

1859. 

157,  St.  Honore, 
and  1  to  3, 
Rue  de  1'Oratoire. 

216,  St.  Antoine. 

106,  Grenelle, 
Saint  Germain. 

JANUARY. 

DAT  OF  THE  TEAR. 

MM.  the  Pastors. 
G.  Monod.* 

MM.  the  Pastors. 

MM.  the  Pastors. 

Sunday,  2  .... 

"  !«•••• 
„  16  .... 

„  23  .... 
„  30  

A.  Coquerel,  jr. 
L.  Rognon. 
Grand  Pierre. 
G.  Monod. 
Ath.  Coquerel. 

Ronville. 
A.  Coquerel,  jr. 
L.  liognon. 
Grand  Pierre. 
G.  Monod. 

Grand  Pierre. 
G.  Monod. 
Ath.  Coquerel. 
A.  Coquerel,  jr. 
L.  Rognon. 

FEBRUARY. 

Sunday,  6  .... 

„  13  
„  20  .... 
„  27  

A.  Coquerel,  jr. 
Service  and  collec- 
L.  Rognon. 
Grand  Pierre. 
G.  Monod. 

Ath.  Coquerel. 
tion  in  favor  of  the 
A.  Coquerel,  jr. 
L.  Vernet. 
Grand  Pierre. 

Grand  Pierre. 
Bttile  Society. 
G.  Monod. 
Ath.  Coquerel. 
A.  Coquerel,  jr. 

*  Suffragant  of  M.  the  Pastor  Juillerat.  [M.  Monod's  name  is 
inserted  in  this  line,  because  he  acts  as  President  of  the  Consistory,  in 
the  place  of  M.  Juillerat.  In  the  lines  below,  the  names  indicate  the 
preachers  on  the  several  days  named.  —  E.  E.  H.] 


172  NINETY    DAYS'  WORTH    OF    EUROPE. 

So  the  table  goes  on  for  the  year.  In  Holy  Week, 
there  is  a  service  every  evening;  and,  on  Good  Friday, 
two.  There  is  also  a  service  on  Ascension  Day,  and 
one  on  Christmas. 

For  better  or  worse,  —  for  better,  "  as  it  seems  to 
me,"  —  this  table  prevents  all  the  disappointment 
which  our  spontaneous  system  induces,  where  peo- 
ple do  not  find  the  minister  they  expected  in  the 
pulpit. 

It  will  be  observed  also,  —  with  some  curiosity,  I 
think,  —  that  the  number  of  services  which  devolves 
upon  each  minister  is,  compared  with  what  we  are 
used  to,  very  small.  The  gentlemen  who  take  the 
most,  conduct  twenty-eight  of  these  services  in  a 
year.  With  us,  even  a  clergyman  who  takes  six 
weeks'  vacation  conducts  ninety-five  in  the  same 
time,  counting  Fast,  Thanksgiving,  and  Christmas. 

The  next  peculiarity  of  interest  in  this  programme 
of  the  Consistory  is  its  arrangement  for  what  the 
French  call  "  semaines  de  service"  ("weeks  of 
service  ") ;  by  which  they  mean  weeks  of  pastoral 
duty  in  baptism,  marriage,  visits  to  the  sick,  or 
funeral  services,  where  no  particular  reason  makes 
it  preferable  to  call  on  one  minister  rather  than 
another.  The  different  pastors  divide  the  year  in 
weeks  for  these  services,  each  being  responsible  for 
his  week.  These  arrangements  are  made  in  advance, 
and  are  printed  thus  :  — 


FROM    ROME    TO    ENGLAND.  173 

"WEEKS    OF   SERVICE    OF  THE    DIFFERENT   PASTORS. 

"  It  is  indispensable,  when  preparation  is  made  for 
a  baptism,  a  marriage,  a  visit  to  the  sick,  or  a  funeral, 
that  the  pastor  of  the  week,  or  any  other  pastor  called 
upon,  shall  be  notified  at  least  as  early  as  fiye  o'clock 
on  the  preceding  afternoon. 

"  WEEKS. 

"  From  Saturday,  Jan.  1 Messrs.  Ath.  Coquerel. 

„       Monday,    Jan.  3 „       G.  Monod. 

„  „         Jan.  10 „       L.  Rognon." 

And  so  it  continues  ;  each  gentleman  taking  ten  or 
eleven  "weeks  of  service"  in  the  course  of  the  year. 
There  is,  of  course,  no  compulsion  on  the  people 
to  select  the  pastor,  whose  "  week  of  service  "  is  thus 
announced,  for  any  ministerial  service  required  on 
that  week.  Each  person  will  call  on  the  minister  he 
prefers;  but  each  person  is  certain  that  the  pastor 
here  indicated  will  be  at  home,  and  will  be  ready  for 
the  service.  This  is  no  unimportant  matter  in  a 
large  city.  I  find  by  my  own  records,  that,  of  twen- 
ty-three funeral  services  in  which  I  have  officiated 
this  year,  ten  were  at  the  interment  of  persons  who 
had  no  connection  with  my  parish ;  with  whom  I  had 
no  acquaintance,  professional  or  otherwise.  I  was 
called  upon,  not  as  their  minister,  but  as  a  minister. 
This  would  be  the  proportion  of  most  of  the  services 
of  Congregational  ministers  in  Boston,  where  the 
Congregational  churches  are  the  oldest  established 


174 


churches,  and  their  ministers  are  recognized,  as,  in 
some  sort,  the  ministers  of  the  whole  town.  On  the 
other  hand,  I  know  of  two  instances  last  summer, 
where,  for  the  performance  of  funeral  services  in 
Boston,  the  bereaved  families  sent  to  more  than 
twelve  ministers  before  they  could  find  one  in  town. 
An  inconvenience  so  painful  would  have  been  spared 
by  a  little  piece  of  system  for  "  weeks  of  service " 
among  persons  outside  our  own  parishes,  like  this  of 
the  Parisian  Consistory. 

There  is  much  other  curious  detail  in  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  schools  and  charities  of  the  Consistory, 
which  I  should  be  glad  to  speak  of;  but  my  space 
forbids  me. 

The  most  interesting  spectacle  of  Paris,  at  first  at 
least,  is  certainly  the  streets  of  Paris.  I  enjoyed,  of 
course,  the  galleries,  the  Louvre,  the  Luxembourg, 
the  Beaux  Arts ;  I  was  greatly  interested  in  the  Im- 
perial Library  and  in  the  museums ;  I  was  fascinated 
by  the  book-shops,  old  and  new ;  and  by  what  I  saw 
of  the  celebrated  churches.  But  in  the  midst  of  all 
these  marvels,  which  belong  to  a  class  like  the  mar- 
vels of  other  cities,  there  stands  out  in  my  memory 
the  greater  marvel  of  the  vivid,  almost  weird,  life  of 
the  Parisian  streets,  the  brilliancy  of  their  shops,  the 
ingenuity  and  order  of  their  civil  administration,  as 
something  which  one  cannot  see  but  in  Paris.  We 
think  Boston  a  well-swept,  well-kept,  well-lighted, 


FROM    ROME    TO    ENGLAND.  175 

and  well-governed  city.  It  compares  very  unfavora- 
bly in  such  regards  with.  Paris.  The  absurd  imbecility 
of  the  inconveniences  of  our  horse  -  railroads,  for 
instance,  would  vanish  in  a  day  before  the  admini- 
strative ingenuity  which  you  see  at  every  point  there. 
No  man,  according  to  me,  should  ever  be  Mayor  of 
Boston  till  he  has  studied  for  a  year  the  municipal 
administration  of  Paris. 

There  is  a  museum  of  domestic  antiquities,  if  I 
may  so  call  it,  at  the  Hotel  Cluny ;  which  the  slight 
notes  in  the  guide-books  would  never  have  sent  me 
to,  but  which  has  ft  great  deal  of  interest  to  any 
person  fond  of  historical  study.  I  make  an  exception 
to  my  rule,  in  speaking  of  it  here.  It  suggests  "Walter 
Scott  all  along,  in  its  illustration  of  the  personal  life 
of  the  Europeans  of  the  last  thousand  years.  At  its 
side  are  the  ruins  of  the  great  baths  established  by 
the  Romans  in  their  sway  here.  The  collection 
began  as  a  private  collection;  but  the  government 
purchased  it  in  1843,  an*  has  constantly  enlarged  it 
since.  It  is  exquisitely  ordered  and  illustrated. 

In  1843,  says  its  own  catalogue,  —  "  at  the  time 
when  the  State  made  the  acquisition  of  the  Hotel 
Cluny  and  of  the  Collection  du  Somerard  for  the 
formation  of  the  Museum  of  National  Antiquities, — 
the  city  of  Paris  promptly  offered  the  Palais  des 
Thermes  as  a  free  gift  to  government.  From  that 
time,  the  remains  of  the  Palace  of  the  Caesars  and 
of  the  first  residence  of  our  kings,  rescued  from 


176          NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

imminent  destruction,  became,  as  well  as  the  Hotel 
Cluny,  the  property  of  the  State.  Both  of  these 
monuments  were  united  together  for  one  object ;  a 
communication  was  again  established  between  them ; 
and  while  the  furniture  of  the  middle  ages,  and  their 
objects  of  art,  are  collected  under  the  roof  of  the 
Hotel  Cluny,  the  arches  of  the  old  Roman  palace  open 
a  spacious  asylum  to  all  the  fragments  of  ancient  art 
daily  found  in  Paris  in  the  process  of  excavation ; 
which,  as  they  are  collected,  will  form  a  museum  as 
interesting  for  art  as  for  the  study  of  the  first  epochs 
of  our  history." 

The  intelligent  guide  who  did 
the  honors  showed  us  with  great 
delight  these  three  rabbits,  sharing 
three  ears,  which  some  humorous 
old   monk   had    carved   into   the 
wood-work  of  a  screen. 
Here  is  a  funny  little  fiddle,  such  as  Pepin  played 
upon. 


I  saw,  with  the  greatest  pleasure,  Mr.  Greenough's 
very  spirited  model  for  an  equestrian  statue  of 
Washington.  The  action  and  spirit  of  the  horse 
have  received  the  highest  praise  from  connoisseurs 
of  the  first  authority.  What  is  more  to  the  purpose 
is  the  manliness  or  character  of  the  "  Washington/' 
which  is  entirely  satisfactory. 


FROM    ROME    TO    ENGLAND.  177 

DOVER,  CASTLE  HOTEL,  Nov.  29,  1859. 

I  reproach  myself  regularly,  after  I  have  finished 
my  letters  home,  that,  as  a  boy  in  his  first  sermons,  I 
have  tried  to  cover  too  much  ground,  and  have  lost 
that  detail  which  I  always  clamor  for,  and  which  is 
the  true  charm  of  letter- writing.  Suppose,  then,  I 
go  into  the  mere  minutia  of  my  trajet  hither  by  the 
reversal  of  the  route  of  Charles  Barbauld. 

We  had  been  coming  up,  thirty  miles  an  hour, 
from  Amiens.  The  country  is  just  like  Western 
prairie, — rolling  a  very,  very  little,  —  with  no  fences; 
with  lots  of  windmills  at  every  town,  so  as  to  be 
strangely  characteristic.  We  are  close  to  the  line 
of  Belgium,  all  the  latter  part  of  the  way.  It  was, 
by  the  way,  one  of  these  windmills  that  Charles 
Barbauld  saw  in  his  travels.  At  a  little  station  called 
Hazebrouck,  I  think,  the  guard  opened  the  door,  and 
cried,  "  Voyageurs  pour  Calais  changent,"  —  quite  to 
my  surprise.  However,  I  took  my  hat,  cloak,  coat, 
and  umbrella  from  the  comfortable  car,  and  got  out 
as  quick  as  I  could ;  when,  to  my  amaze,  I  saw  that 
the  three  Americans  whom  I  had  met  there  did  not 
move.  "Don't  you  go  to  Calais?"  cried  I,  as  the 

guard  hurried-  me  on.  "  No  !  "  said  poor  , 

senior  :  "  we  go  to  Boulogne."  Now,  we  had  passed 
the  bifurcation  for  Boulogne  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles 
before.  I  was  "rushed"  on  by  the  guard,  as  they  do 
in  this  country ;  but  I  rapidly  explained  to  him,  in 
French,  that  the  party  I  had  left  thought  they  were 

12 


178          NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

going  to  Boulogne.     And  when,  an  hour  after,  I  was 

at  the  passport-office,  came  and  thanked  me ; 

having  been,  by  this  intervention,  rescued  from  going 
to  Dunkirk  with  his  wife  and  nephew.  Indeed,  I 
do  not  see  why  they  should  have  brought  up  short 
of  Moscow. 

I  thought  we  had  done  with  passports  ;  but  at 
Calais,  it  proved,  we  had  to  take  permits  to  get  out 
of  the  empire.  So  we  gave  up  our  passports,  simply 
to  have  the  names,  nationalities,  positions,  and  ages 
copied,  and  permits  to  leave  given  us.  It  was  rather 
funny  to  hear  (f  cinquante-neuf,"  and  other  such  ages, 
read  out  for  the  nice-looking  English  ladies,  who  had 
to  attend  in  person.  I  got  my  permit  rather  late,  as 
it  happened ;  and  having  lost  a  baggage -billet,  the 
other  day,  from  my  change-pocket,  put  this  carefully 
in  my  purse.  Passing  through  the  luffet,  the  waiter 
asked  me  if  I  did  not  want  to  change  my  French 
money  for  English ;  and,  finding  from  him  there  was 
time,  I  gave  him  seventy  francs  to  change.  Just 
then  the  steamboat  agent  appeared,  to  drag  me  on 
board.  I  made  him  wait  till  I  got  my  money.  We 
rushed  across  the  wharf,  steam  was  put  on,  and  I 
was  springing  on  board ;  when  a  policeman  asked 
for  this  permit,  mentioned  seven  pages  back.  I  had 
to  stop,  "unbutton  two  coats  and  a  pocket,  and  open 
my  purse-clasp  to  get  it ;  seeing  the  boat  glide  away 
all  the  time.  Then,  however,  these  quick  Frenchmen 
ran  out  the  echette  (gangway-plank),  which  had  been 


FROM    ROME    TO    ENGLAND.  179 

withdrawn.  I  flung  my  cloak  and  umbrella  across  on 
the  moving  boat,  went  back  to  the  land-end  of  the 
echette,  took  a  quick  run,  and  sprang  from  the  sea- 
end  into  the  helmsman's  arms,  —  they  holding  the 
plank  over  the  water  for  me  to  do  so.  This  would 
have  been  possible  in  no  other  country  in  the  world. 
In  Italy  there  would  have  been  no  plank,  but  a  small 
skiff.  In  America  there  would  have  been  no  one  on 
shore  to  attend  to  the  plank :  it  would  been  cared  for 
from  the  boat.  In  England  it  would  have  taken  ten. 
days  to  explain  to  the  attendants  (of  whom  there 
would  have  been  three  times  too  many)  how  to  do 
what  was  so  new  to  them.  But  in  France  they  did, 
of  administrative  impulse,  what  they  never  did  before, 
and  never  will  again. 

As  soon  as  I  had  seen  the  "lighthouse  on  the  Spit," 
I  went  down  stairs,  and  lay  down ;  and  it  seemed  but 
a  few  minutes,  when  the  man  came  and  asked  me  for 
my  pay  for  the  passage,  announcing  that  we  were 
within  two  minutes  of  Dover. 

You  cannot  conceive  the  pleasure  of  hearing 
English  again.  Said  I  at  Calais  to  the  baggage-agent, 
"  Mon  billet  pour  le  bagage  n'est  que  pour  Calais ; 
mais  je  vais  a  Douvres,  et  je  veux  que  mon  bagage 
aille  directement  au  paquebot."  —  "  Ici,  Jean  !  "  said 
he ;  and  Jean  icied.  I  began  again,  "  Je  veux,"  &c., 
&c. ;  to  hear  Jean  say,  in  very  Cockney  accents, 
"  You  needn't  give  yourself  any  anxiety :  you'll  find 
it  at  Dover."  Vainly  did  Italians  say  the  same  thing 


180 


NINETY    DAYS     WORTH    OF    EUROPE. 


to  me  in  their  lingo ;  but  here  I  took  the  man  at  his 
good  English  word,  and  did  not  go  near  the  baggage, 
—  not  even  at  the  custom-house,  where  I  sent  my 
keys,  —  but  left  it  to  come  to  me.  The  feeling  of 
that  Cockney  English  was  a  gale  of  home.  Not 
but  that  I  have  had  plenty  of  English  talked  to  me 
by  waiters;  but  it  has  been  of  a  different  quality. 
Did  I  tell  you,  that,  in  Dauphiny,  a  man  asked  me 
what  province  I  came  from,  and  said  he  did  not 
recognize  my  patois  ? 

This  chapter  may  end  at  Dover,  with  this  little 
sketch  of  the  Beifroi  and  H6tel  de  Ville  at  Douai,  as 
I  saw  them  from  the  station.  Such,  at  least,  they 
are,  according  to  my  best  knowledge  and  belief; 
though  I  did  not  know  their  names  for  nearly  a 
year. 


ENGLAND. 


181 


•~? 


'-•*  J' 

PILATON,  IN   STAFFOEDSHIEE. 


ENGLAND. 


-OUR  weeks  in  England, 
with  London  for  head- 
quarters, and  excursions 
north,  south,  east,  and 
west,  as  episodes,  filled 
my  note-books  and  letters  very  full.  So  full  are 
they,  indeed,  that  I  shall  best  condense  them  by  omit- 
ting the  whole  story.  That  charming  country  life 


182          NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

does  not  differ  from  our  most  charming  country 
life  ;  unless,  perhaps,  you  feel  that  an  English  family 
in  the  country,  in  winter,  relies  a  little  more  on  itself 
and  the  sojourning  visitors,  and  less  on  the  arrange- 
ments of  the  neighborhood,  than  the  same  family 
would  do  here.  Saying  this,  I  think,  on  the  whole, 
I  will  try  to  say  nothing  more. 

In  London,  my  first  care  was  to  establish  myself 
near  the  British  Museum,  where  I  had  occasion  to 
study.  And  let  me  say,  once  for  all,  that,  as  before, 
I  found  myself  at  home  in  London  at  once.  At  the 
Museum,  Mr.  Panizzi,  that  prince  of  librarians,  was 
most  kind  and  cordial.  He  introduced  me  to  every- 
body who  could  help  me ;  and  I  was  almost  instantly 
happily  at  work  among  their  invaluable  manuscripts. 
Here,  and  at  the  State-paper  Office,  I  was  engaged  on 
a  little  essay  in  the  history  of  America.  Think,  dear 
reader,  of  running  your  eye  over  Walter  Raleigh's 
private  letters  about  Virginia,  in  his  own  manuscript ! 
The  history  of  America  cannot  now  be  written  with- 
out the  use  of  the  resources  which  London  gives.  As 
the  new  reading-room  of  the  Museum  has  not  been 
long  established,  and  as  it  has  no  rival  even  in  "Ara- 
bian Nights,"  I  must  try  to  give  some  idea  of  its 
princely  hospitality. 

Here  is  a  circular  hall,  then,  built  in  what  was  the 
quadrangle,  surrounded  by  the  old  Museum.  It  is 
one  hundred  and  forty  feet  in  diameter ;  high  enough 
to  admit  three  galleries,  giving  access  to  books.  It  is 


ENGLAND.  183 

covered  by  a  dome,  of  which,  the  greater  part  is  glass. 
This  magnificent  circle  is  broken  by  no  columns ;  the 
dome  being  wholly  supported  by  the  side-walls.  This 
whole  concave  wall  within  is  then  shelved,  and  filled 
with  books,  excepting  the  space  occupied  by  the  door 
of  entrance  for  visitors,  and  the  opposite  door  by 
which  the  attendants  come  and  go. 

This  hall  contains  jnore  than  sixty  thousand  vo- 
lumes, which  are  called,  in  the  magnificent  phrase  of 
the  Museum,  the  "  books  of  reference."  Remember 
that  we  have  hardly  a  public  library  in  America  larger 
than  this,  and  that  these  books  are  selected  from 
the  whole  collection  of  this  Museum,  and  you  will 
understand  that  here  is  almost  every  thing  which 
even  an  ordinary  student,  not  working  up  a  speciality, 
would  require.  To  these  sixty  thousand  books 
everybody  has  access  ,*  being  permitted  to  take  them 
down  as  he  pleases,  to  read  in  the  hall :  for  it  must 
be  understood,  that  no  book  is  ever  taken  from  the 
library.  This  is,  indeed,  an  essential  rule  in  all  pub- 
lic libraries  which  mean  to  accommodate  students. 
How  gross  it  would  be,  when  a  new  subject  of  general 
interest  came  up,  to  let  the  first  men  who  came  along 
carry  to  their  homes  the  special  critical  books  needed 
to  illustrate  that  subject ! 

A  circle  in  the  middle  of  the  reading-room  is  sur- 
rounded by  the  tables  and  desks  of  the  corps  of 
attendants,  who  stand  within,  ready  to  answer  any 
demands  for  books  not  among  the  "  books  of  refer- 


184 


ence."  On  the  outside  of  this  table  is  another 
circular  table,  under  which  stand  the  folio  catalogues. 
There  are  probably  three  or  four  hundred  volumes 
of  these  catalogues,  most  of  them  being  in  manu- 
script. They  must  be  in  manuscript  in  a  library 
which  enlarges  by  fifty  thousand  volumes  a  year ;  or 
rather  this  will  be  necessary  until  Professor  Jewett's 
plan  for  stereotyping  titles  is  established.  Mean- 
while, where  you  can  take  for  granted,  as  you  can 
at  the  British  Museum,  that  they  have  every  thing, 
there  is  very  clearly  no  need  of  a  printed  catalogue, 
except  as  a  well-edited  list  of  all  the  books  now 
available  in  the  world  would  be  a  very  great  conve- 
nience to  all  scholars. 

From  these  tables  on  the  lines  of  radii  of  the  hall, 
there  run  twenty-five  series  of  tables,  with  desks  for 
the  accommodation  of  students.  I  do  not  know  the 
private  gentleman  who  has  in  his  own  study  such  con- 
venient apparatus  for  the  consultation  of  books  and 
for  writing  as  is  provided  here  at  about  three  hundred 
and  twenty  escritoirs  for  as  many  students.  Each 
book  has  its  different  racks  and  shelves  to  support 
the  various  books  consulted,  in  a  set  of  ingenious 
mechanical  appliances  such  as  I  have  never  else- 
where seen. 

Any  person  who  wishes  to  make  use  of  this  read- 
ing-room may  obtain  a  ticket  for  the  day  by  asking 
for  it.  If  he  wishes  to  work  there  a  longer  time,  he 
may  obtain  a  ticket  for  a  year  by  bringing  an  intro- 


ENGLAND. 


185 


duction  from  some  person  so  far  known  to  the  officers 
of  the  Museum,  that  they  are  willing  to  take  him  as 
a  voucher.  Practically,  anybody  who  wants  this 
introduction  can  obtain  it.  Armed  with  this  intro- 
duction, you  go  into  the  reading-room,  place  your 
portfolio  on  any  desk  you  choose  (say,  D.  3),  which 
then  becomes  your  place  for  the  day ;  and  you  are  mas- 
ter, for  the  day,  of  this  princely  collection  of  five  hun- 
dred thousand  volumes,  of  which  a  tenth  part  are 
manuscripts  which  have  never  been  printed.  As  I 
have  said,  you  may  take  down  any  of  the  "  books  of 
reference,"  without  asking  leave  of  any  one.  For  any 
book  not  in  this  hall,  however,  you  must  send ;  and 
here  the  process  of  account-keeping  is  simple  and 
rapid.  It  is  the  same  as  that  in  the  Astor  Library, 
but  may  not  be  familiar  to  my  readers.  You  are 
provided  with  any  number  of  blanks,  of  the  form 
here  annexed.  This  is,  in  fact,  a  blank  filled  out  as 
I  used  it  in  the  Museum ;  the  manuscript  part  being 
printed  here  in  quotation-marks  :  — 


Press  Mark. 

Title  of  the  Work  wanted. 

Size. 

Place. 

Date. 

"  452. 
f.  14." 

"  Catesby,  Mark.   Hortus 
Europae  Araericanus." 

"4to." 

"  London." 

"1767." 

(Date)    «  Dec.  14."  «  E.  E.  Hale  "   (Signature). 

"  D.  3  "  (Number  of  the  Reader's  Seat). 
Please  to  restore  each  volume  of  the  Catalogue  to  its  place, 
as  soon  as  done  with. 


186  NINETY    DAYS9   WORTH    OF    EUROPE. 

[  On  the  reverse.} 
READERS   ARE  PARTICULARLY  REQUESTED, 

1.  Not  to  ask  for  more  than  one  Work  on  the  same  ticket. 

2.  To  transcribe  literally  from  the  Catalogues  the  title  of  the 
"Work  wanted. 

3.  To  write  in  a  plain,  clear  hand,  in  order  to  avoid  delay 
and  mistakes. 

4.  Before  leaving  the  Room,  to  return  each  book,  or  set  of 
books,  to  an  attendant,  and  to  obtain  the  corresponding  ticket ; 
the  READER  BEING  RESPONSIBLE  FOR  THE  BOOKS  so  LONG 
AS  THE  TICKET  REMAINS  UNCANCELLED. 

N.  B.  —  Readers  are  not,  under  any  circumstances,  to  take  a 
Book  or  MS.  out  of  the  Reading  Room. 

For  manuscripts  you  have  similar  blanks,  printed,  for 
convenience,  on  green  paper. 

This  is  your  order  for  the  book.  You  may  order 
as  many  as  you  choose,  —  the  whole  four  hundred 
and  forty  thousand,  —  if  you  can  write  their  names, 
in  a  fair,  legible  hand,  on  as  many  blanks  ;  but  you 
must  give  a  separate  order  for  each  volume.  This 
order  then  becomes  your  receipt  for  the  volume  while 
you  are  using  it.  When  you  carry  back  the  volume, 
you  do  not  surrender  it  till  your  receipt  is  given  back 
to  you.  Your  liability  to  the  Museum  for  that  book 
then  ceases ;  for  this  is,  in  fact,  their  whole  account 
of  the  transaction. 

It  is  not  on  the  system,  however,  alone,  that  the 
comfort  of  a  reader  depends,  but  on  the  administra- 
tion of  the  system.  It  is  just  here  that  most  public 
libraries  break  down.  Without  specifying  cases  on 


ENGLAND.  187 

our  side  of  the  Atlantic,  I  may  tell  how  I  tested  the 
Imperial  Library  in  Paris,  and  how  it  failed.  I  went 
to  one  of  the  cases  to  which  readers  had  not  access, 
and  copied  the  name  of  one  of  Lepsius's  books,  which 
I  could  see  through  the  wire  door :  I  did  this  simply 
to  test  the  administration.  Then  I  sent  this  in,  in 
form,  as  my  order.  After  two  or  three  messages  to 
me  about  what  they  had  and  what  they  had  not, 
which  ended  in  my  directing  them  to  bring  me  all 
Lepsius's  works  they  had,  they  brought  me  two  old 
pamphlets  of  his,  but  said  they  were  in  despair  to 
find  that  they  had  not  in  the  collection  the  book 
whose  title  I  had  just  before  read  there,  within  thirty 
feet  of  the  librarian-in-chief.  At  the  British  Museum, 
on  the  other  hand,  I  do  not  remember  a  mistake  in 
the  delivery — which  was  also  the  very  rapid  delivery 
—  of  all  the  hundreds  of  books  which  I  had  occasion 
to  consult  there  during  my  stay  in  London.  Both 
here  and  at  the  State-paper  Office,  where  I  was 
at  work  very  often,  they  seemed  to  me  to  have  quite 
"  the  right  men  in  the  right  places."  At  the  State- 
paper  Office  they  have  just  now  completed  the  Index 
to  the  American  Papers,  with  admirable  precision. 
It  is  invaluable  to  students  on  this  side. 

I  was  frequently  at  Cambridge,  which  is  but  a  long 
two  hours'  ride  from  London ;  and  the  warmth  of 
welcome  which  Trinity  College  gives  everybody,  I 
believe,  has  made  me  feel  very  much  at  home  there. 


188 


NINETY    DAYS     WORTH    OF    EUROPE. 


I  made  a  charming  visit  of 
three  days  at  Oxford  ;  *  just 
before  the  Christmas  holidays, 
however,  when  the  greater  part 
of  the  undergraduates  were 
away.  I  have  put  the  Brazen 
Nose  as  a  sort  of  knocker  at 
the  door  of  this  chapter.  It 
belongs,  really,  above  the  door 
of  Brazen-nose  College ;  the 
real  name  of  which  (I  am  sor- 
ry to  say),  the  antiquaries  say, 
comes  from  "Brasenhus,"  be- 
cause the  buildings  were  on  the  site  of  a  brew-house 
belonging  to  King  Alfred's  palace. 

No  :  the  reader  need  not  fear  that  I  am  going 
to  attempt  a  description  of  the  English  university 
system.  I  certainly  studied  it  with  a  good  deal  of 
care.  I  bored  people  to  death  with  my  questions, 
and  elicited  a  great  deal  of  curious  information.  But 
it  seemed  to  me  that  even  the  oldest  university-men 
were  sometimes  puzzled  as  to  facts,  which  with  us 
would  have  been  matter  of  annual  record.  How 
much  more  in  doubt  were  they  as  to  the  origin  of 
systems  in  which  they  were  daily  ministering  ! 

*  This  lion  is  one  of  forty  or  more  different  beasts,  birds,  and  other 
gentry,  who  sit  on  as  many  buttresses  in  the  quadrangle  of  St.  Mary 
Magdalen  at  Oxford.  There  is  no  reason  for  his  illustrating  Oxford, 
but  that  he  happened  to  be  in  sight  when  I  was  waiting  in  a  cloister 
for  a  friend. 


ENGLAND.  189 

At  each,  university  I  was  told  that  the  recent 
sweeping  work  of  "the  University  Commissions"  was 
very  badly  done  for  that  institution,  but  was  better 
done  for  the  other.  I  confess  I  was  disposed,  from 
what  I  heard,  to  think  it  w^as  badly  done  for  both. 
The  difficulty  in  all  such  cases  is,  that  the  fittest 
men  for  the  task  will  not  take  the  commission. 

Without  entering,  then,  upon  the  system  of  disci- 
pline and  instruction,  I  may  speak  of  some  more 
superficial  details. 

What  struck  me  first,  even  in  the  first  hour  I  was 
in  Cambridge,  were  the  resemblances  between  the 
methods  of  student-life  there  and  student-life  at  our 
Cambridge.  As  soon  as  I  was  established  at  the  Bull 
Inn  (next  door  to  the  house  where  Miles  Coverdale 
translated  the  Testament),  I  went  up  the  street  into 
MacMillan's  bookstore.  This  is  the  MacMillan  who 
publishes  "  MacMillan's  Magazine."  It  is  simply 
astonishing  that  the  similarity  of  circumstances  should 
make  the  place  so  exactly  like  a  bookstore  in  our 
Cambridge.  The  external  arrangements  were  the 
same.  You  walked  about  on  all  sides  of  the  counters, 
and  went  just  where  you  chose ;  just  as  we  used  to 
do  at  Mr.  Owen's,  and  as  we  do  now  at  Mr.  Bartlett's. 
Then  it  was  evident  that  men  used  the  shop  for  just 
the  same  purposes.  They  seemed  to  drop  in  because 
they  had  made  -an  appointment  there,  or  had  five 
minutes'  leisure,  or  for  any  reason  but  to  buy  books. 
Nobody  expected  you  to  buy,  any  more  than  they 


190          NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

expected  us  to,  when  we  went  into  Owen's  to  spend 
the  time  between  one  recitation  and  another.  The 
books,  also,  were  just  such  books  as  would  have  been 
on  the  American  counters.  In  a  university-bookstore 
here,  are,  of  course,  a  great  many  English  editions  :  I 
was  surprised  and  pleased  to  see  how  many  American 
editions  there  were  there.  Passing  from  the  book- 
store to  an  undergraduate's  room,  the  similarity  to 
American  student -life  seemed  to  me  even  more 
striking.  The  first  room  I  went  into  was  that  of  a 
gentleman  who  lived  out  of  college.  It  was  (to  quote 
Plutarch)  not  like  one  of  our  rooms  :  "it  was  the 
same  thing."  There  was  nothing  to  tell  me  that  I 
was  not  in  a  room  in  the  Appian  Way  in  our  Cam- 
bridge, except  that  there  was  a  hob  on  the  grate  for 
the  teakettle.  The  grate  was  of  the  same  pattern;  the 
carpet  and  furniture  were  in  the  same  style ;  the  very 
bookshelves  were  cut  in  the  same  way;  the  very  books 
upon  the  bookshelves  showed  the  same  sort  of  tastes 
that  I  might  have  found  with  a  friend  at  home.  In 
my  day,  in  college,  we  had  a  passion  for  bituminous 
coal ;  which  may  or  may  not  exist  now,  but  which 
contributed  to  this  similarity  for  me. 

As  for  dissimilarities,  there  are,  of  course,  plenty; 
but  they  are  not  quite  so  superficial,  and  do  not  so 
immediately  appear.  In  certain  hours,  corresponding 
to  the  old  myth  of  "  study-hours  "  at  our  Cambridge, 
—  a  myth  which  I  suppose  exists  there  no  longer, 
even  in  name,  —  the  English  students  have  to  wear 


ENGLAND.  191 

their  gowns  and  caps  in  the  street.  Of  course,  at 
other  hours,  they  are  almost  certain  to  appear  without 
them,  and  in  little  jaunty  rowing-hats,  or  something 
else  as  unscholastic  as  possible.  In  a  country  where 
it  rains  more  or  less  almost  every  day,  the  gown  is 
rather  a  convenient  light  cloak;  the  Trinity  gown, 
for  instance,  being  made  of  a  sort  of  heavy  camlet  of 
blue-black.  This  matter  of  costume,  of  course,  makes 
the  streets,  the  quadrangles,  and  the  chapel  appear 
differently  from  what  they  would  with  us.  The  amia- 
ble rivalry,  if  I  may  call  it  so,  between  the  colleges 
in  the  same  university,  introduces  peculiarities  which 
I  think  the  English  gentlemen  themselves  are  uncon- 
scious of,  but  which  strike  a  stranger.  I  ascribe  it  to 
this,  in  a  measure,  that  the  persecution  of  freshmen 
appears  to  be  wholly  unknown.  There  is  plenty  of  it 
in  the  schools  and  in  military  colleges ;  but,  I  think, 
not  in  the  universities.  I  am*  sure,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  there  is  rather  a  habit,  on  the  part  of 
undergraduates  who  have  been  established  for  some 
time  in  a  college,  if  they  be  particularly  attached  to 
their  own  college,  to  go  up  early,  at  the  beginning 
of  a  term,  for  the  special  purpose  of  welcoming 
new-comers.  There  is  a  little  of  the  feeling  with 
which  the  New-Haven  men  canvass  very  early  the 
promising  freshmen,  to  induce  them  to  enter  the  rival 
college  societies.  Such,  at  least,  is  my  theory;  though 
I  think  nobody  stated  it  to  me  so  on  the  ground. 
The  fact  is,  that  a  freshman,  on  his  arrival,  meets  a 


192          NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

courteous  welcome  from  everybody  who  belongs  to 
his  college.  There  is  an  unconscious  esprit  de  corps, 
on  the  part  of  each  college,  to  make  a  young  man 
feel  that  he  has  done  right  in  coming  to  them,  instead 
of  coming  to  any  of  the  other  colleges  in  the  same 
university.  Nay,  it  is  possible  that  an  undecided 
student  may  change  his  plans,  and  select  another 
college  from  that  which  he  had  proposed. 

I  may  add,  that  almost  every  one  who  comes  either 
to  Oxford  or  Cambridge  has  been  already  trained  to 
the  responsibilities  and  self-control  of  a  gentleman. 
In  almost  every  case,  he  has  been  used  to  social  life, 
and  is  accustomed  to  bear  himself  with  propriety  in 
the  presence  both  of  elders  and  juniors.  In  other 
words,  that  has  been  done  for  him  at  the  public 
schools,  which,  in  many  cases,  has  to  be  done  at  our 
colleges.  But  the  average  age  of  a  Cambridge  or 
Oxford  freshman  is  scarcely,  if  at  all,  greater  than 
that  of  a  freshman  at  our  Cambridge ;  and,  I  think, 
not  at  all  greater  than  that  of  freshmen  at  New 
Haven. 

I  never,  till  now,  understood  why  the  English  stu- 
dents cared  so  much  more  for  college  honors  than  we. 
When  I  was  in  college,  I  do  not  think  there  were 
five  men  in  the  class  who  would  have  crossed  the 
street  to  raise  their  college  rank ;  and  I  think  our 
impression  was  correct  of  its  worthlessness  in  its 
minor  details.  One  would  be  glad  to  be  in  the  best 
quarter-part  of  the  class ;  and  that  is  about  all.  But 


ENGLAND.  193 

on  the  ground,  in  England,  I  saw  at  once  that  their 
college  honors  were  honors  with  a  great  deal  directly 
springing  from  them.     The  University  of  Cambridge, 
for  instance,  has  the  direct  control  of  the  expenditure 
of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  pounds  yearly.     So  much 
money  is  paid  to  clergymen  or  tutors  or  professors, 
or  other  people  whom  she  has  appointed.     Behind 
this,  there  are  large  series  of  honorable  and  influen- 
tial positions,  to  which  the   lines  of  promotion  are 
through  these  offices  which  she  herself  directly  fills. 
Masterships  in  the  public  schools  ;  various  offices  in 
the  church,  up  to  the  highest,  —  are,  in  the  long-run, 
given  to  men  whom  the  two  universities  have  distin- 
guished as  worthy  of  preferment.     The  young  man, 
therefore,  who  works  for  college  honors,  is  workin°- 
to  take  the  first  direct  steps  in  an  honorable  literary 
or   ecclesiastical   career.      For  that    career,   success, 
even  as  an  undergraduate  in  college,  is  a  very  impor- 
tant beginning.     It  is  as  a  midshipman  might  seek 
to  distinguish  himself  in  the  first  steps  of  his  profes- 
sion ;  or  as  a  young  man  entering  the  diplomatic  corps 
in  Europe  might  know,  that,  with  him,  early  noto- 
riety would  tell  all  the  way  through.     With  us,  on 
the  other  hand,  I  know  no   single   advantage  in  a 
man's  subsequent  career  derived  from  high  rank  in 
college.     There  are,  undoubtedly,  many  very  great 
advantages  which  spring  from  the  habits  and  acquisi- 
tions which  give  him  that  position ;  but,  beyond  the 
college  walls,  nobody  knows  or   cares  more  than  to 

13 


194          NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  or  EUROPE. 

know,  that,  on  the  whole,  he  availed  himself  honor- 
ably of  the  advantages  of  the  university. 

But  the  printer  warns  me  that  this  little  book  is  too 
long.  I  must  omit,  therefore,  all  notice  of  a  delight- 
ful visit  at  Canterbury,  where  I  was  made  so  happy 
under  the  very  shadow  of  the  Cathedral.  From  the 
neighborhood  of  Canterbury,  Robert  Hale  came  to 
our  Charlestown  in  1630.  At  Bekesborne,  I  saw 
the  church  in  which  he  worshipped  :  at  Thanington, 
I  worshipped  in  the  church  where  his  father  and 
mother  are  buried.  I  must  say  nothing  of  the  Work- 
ing-men's College  at  London,  Mr.  Maurice's  child,  in 
which  I  have  always  been  interested ;  now  that  I  am 
a  "  member "  of  it,  so  much  more  than  ever.  I 
must  say  nothing  of  such  inquiries  as  I  could  make 
into  the  work  of  my  profession  in  London,  nor  of 
my  fascinating  walks  in  London  by  day  or  night,  as 
it  revealed  to  me  more  and  more  of  its  secret  ways. 
I  should  have  been  glad  to  speak  of  St.  Augustine's 
College  and  the  Cuddesden  College  for  training 
clergymen,  —  the  first  a  missionary  college.  I  should 
be  glad  to  speak  of  Manchester,  where  I  was  so  much 
at  home ;  and  of  Liverpool,  where  I  was  at  home 
again.  Where,  indeed,  is  one  not  at  home  in  Eng- 
land ? 

I  spent  Christmas  at  Manchester,  —  my  first  Christ- 
mas under  the  mistletoe.  Late  at  night,  on  the  28th 
of.  December,  I  left  Liverpool  for  Ireland. 

Of  Eobert  Hale  of  Bekesborne,  mentioned  above, 


ENGLAND. 


195 


it  may  be  remarked,  that,  as  the  genealogists  say, 
this  Robert  was  the  father  of  John,  who  was  the  f.  of, 
etc.,  who  was  the  gr.  f.  of,  etc.,  who  was  the  gr.  f. 
of  this  author,  who  thus  engaged  in  a  filial  pilgrim- 
age, which  a  more  accurate  scholar  would  call  pro- 
nepotial,  to  the  birthplace  of  his  ancestry. 


BEKESBORNE    CHURCH. 


196         NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 


IRELAND. 


AVING  given  some  of  the  best  hours 
of  my  life  to  cares  connected  with 
the  absorption  into  American  so- 
ciety of  raw  Irish  emigrants,  I  was 
determined  to  see  for  myself  something  of  the  pea- 
sant-life of  Ireland  at  home.  With  this  view,  I 
crossed  from  Liverpool  to  Dublin  on  the  night  of 
the  28th  of  December ;  having  three  days  before  me 
before  I  should  take  the  "  Europa  "  for  America, 
at  Cork.  "With  more  time,  I  should  have  been  glad, 
of  course,  to  have  seen  the  finer  scenery  of  Ire- 
land, or  its  large  cities.  For  want  of  time  to  do 
this,  however,  I  determined  simply  to  visit  the  old 
homes  of  two  of  my  American-Irish  friends ;  taking 
my  chance  of  what  else  I  might  see  in  Ireland  by 


IRELAND.  197 

the  way.     My  Ireland  begins,  therefore,  as  the  mail- 
boat  arrived  at  Kingston,  the  port  of  Dublin. 

From  this  moment  till  I  stepped  on  board  the 
"  Europa "  in  the  Bay  of  Queenstown,  the  port  of 
Cork,  I  may  say  fairly,  that  every  hour,  and  almost 
every  incident,  had  its  ludicrous  illustration  of  the 
reckless,  unreasoning,  and  imprudent  characteristics 
of  mind  which  have  made  Ireland  Ireland,  joined 
with  the  heartiness,  demonstrativeness,  and  enthu- 
siasm which  appear,  of  course,  where  the  instincts  are 
under  very  little  intellectual  control.  Ireland  seems 
to  me,  therefore,  the  most  entertaining  country  to 
travel  in  that  I  ever  saw.  To  any  one  to  whom  fun, 
surprise,  and  adventure,  uncalculated  successes  and 
unexpected  disappointments,  furnish  more  excitement 
than  do  regular  connections,  machine-ruled  inns,  and 
the  other  arrangements  which  can  be  written  down  in 
a  guide-book  or  in  an  advertisement,  Ireland  certainly 
is  the  most  exciting  country  now  left  in  Europe.  It 
is  to  illustrate  these  peculiarities,  that  I  give  my 
diary  here  in  a  little  more  detail  than  usual. 

DEC.  29,  1859. 

Ireland  begins,  somewhere  in  my  note-book,  with 
some  account  of  my  catching  the  train  at  Broadstone 
Station  at  Dublin.  Starting  at  Kingston  with  the 
watch  at  ten  minutes  before  seven,  which  I  knew 
was  right  at  Liverpool ;  riding  by  rail  to  Dublin,  one- 
and-sixpence  worth ;  then  lugging  luggage  to  a  cab, 


198          NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

and  riding,  in  the  grim  gray,  by  "  some  tall  column," 
through  Dublin  to  the  Broadstoiie  Station,  knowing 
that  my  train  should  leave  that  at  sev^r  o'clock ; 
doing,  knowing,  being,  and  suffering  all  this,  I  say, 
my  surprise  may  be  imagined,  when,  as  we  arrived 
there,  the  clock  pointed  grimly  at  seven,  and  the 
train  was  just  ready  to  start.  I  once  in,  it  started. 
By  my  watch,  it  was  twenty-three  minutes  past  seven. 
I  had  saved  the  train  by  — 

The  difference  of  longitude  ! 

But  the  world's  revolution  was  not  so  obliging 
about  breakfast.  I  burned  my  tongue,  and  it  is  still 
rough,  with  the  coffee  I  drank  as  we  left  the  station ; 
an  obsequious  porter  running  by  the  side  to  take  cup 
and  saucer.  Irish  again.  At  Maynooth,  there  was 
"  not  time  for  refreshment,"  at  Kilcock  no  more,  nor 
at  Enfield ;  and  it  was  not  till  we  came  to  Mullingar 
(how  deliciously  Irish  these  names,  of  which 'the  last 
now  sounds  very  familiarly  to  me  !)  that  I  found  a 
refreshment-room. 

The  country  through  this  part  of  Leinster  is  very 
flat,  very  green,  but  much  more  like  us  than  I  sup- 
posed ;  the  smallness  of  the  enclosures  and  the  stone 
walls  doing  most  to  give  it  this  aspect.  Although 
there  is  very  little  wood,  yet  there  is  enough,  screen- 
ing walls  and  fields,  to  make  a  show  along  the 
horizon ;  and  it  does  not  look  specially  bare.  When, 
later  in  the  day,  I  had  a  chance  to  notice  the  pro- 


IRELAND.  199 

cess  (and  chance  enough  I  had,  as  you  shall  see), 
I  found  that  they  build  "  stone  wall "  to  divide  fields 
much  as  we  do,  but  often  with  cement.  With  or 
without,  however,  the  walls  are  broader  at  bottom 
than  at  top,  and  then  the  top  very  carefully  rounded 
with  cement,  or  at  worst  with  clay.  Over  all  this, 
sod  is  placed,  with  enough  earth  to  make  it  grow, 
when  the  wall  protects  a  roadway,  or  any  other 
place  where  it  is  likely  to  be  seen ;  so  that  it  be- 
comes a  pretty  green  wall.  But,  unless  it  is  so 
kept  up,  the  wall  gradually  resumes  the  aspect  of 
one  of  ours. 

And  so,  in  my  comfortable  first-class,  I  rode  from 
seven  till  eleven,  and  found  myself  at  Crossdony, 
—  how  well  I  learned  that  name  before  I  was  done 
with  it !  —  where  Bradshaw  said,  and  my  guide  as 
well,  that  I  must  take  conveyance  for  Killashandra. 
Killashandra  appeared  on  the  map  to  be  seven 
miles  off.  I  was  well  pleased  when  the  carman  told 
me  it  was  five ;  this  being  my  practical  instruction  in 
the  fact,  which  I  learned  next  day  from  the  map, 
that  there  are  but  fifty-four  Irish  miles  to  the  degree, 
equal  to  sixty-nine  English ;  and  that,  dropping  the 
fractions  therefore,  five  miles  meant  seven,  —  the 
best  part  of  seven  indeed,  without  dropping  them. 
To  my  joy,  the  car  was  a  regular  jaunting-car.  In 
Liverpool  and  Dublin,  a  cab  is  called  a  car.  A 
jaunting-car  is  a  good  vehicle  for  its  purpose,  looking 
somewhat  thus  :  — 


200 


NINETY    DAYS     WORTH    OF    EUROPE. 


The  covers  to  the  wheels  fold  up  when  no  one  is  sit- 
ting on  the  seats,  being  made  of  light  canvas  on  a 
frame.  Between  the  backs  lie  my  portmanteau,  my 
knapsack,  umbrella,  &c. 

As  it  proved,  I  was  the  only  passenger  to  Killa- 
shandra,  which  did  not  so  much  surprise  me  then  ; 
but  it  proved  to  be  a  town  to  which  other  people  did 
come  and  go,  as  perhaps  an  attentive  reader  will  see. 
The  whole  ride  was  wonderfully  fresh  and  amusing. 
To  have  everybody  one  saw  Irish  had  been  all  day 
singularly  home-like.  What  can  the  peculiarity  of 
costume  be  which  they  succeed  in  adopting  so  uni- 
versally ?  Well  under  way  on  this  ride,  I  began 
plying  the  driver  with  questions,  and  got  some  very 
national  answers. 

Third  likeness  to  America,  let  it  be  confessed,  is  in 
the  cabins,  which  are  as  like  log-cabins  as  that  built 
of  stone  can  be  like  that  built  of  wood.  They  are 
almost  universally  whitewashed ;  so  that  the  resem- 


IRELAND. 


201 


blance  to  a  log- cabin,  with  the  walls  filled  in  with 
clay,  and  whitewashed,  is  all  the  stronger.  Within, 
the  likeness  is  stronger  yet ;  only,  in  fact,  wanting  the 
floor  to  be  perfect.  Then  it  is  to  be  observed,  that, 
excepting  distinct  houses  of  the  gentry  and  the 
houses  in  the  towns,  there  are  none  but  these  cabins. 
Most  of  them  are  built  of  stone,  all  one  story  high, 
with  the  door  directly  entering  the  common  room. 
At  the  left  is  the  enclosure  for  the  pig  ;  at  the  ex- 
treme right,  the  fireplace ;  and,  if  there  is  another 
room,  it  is  built  on  beyond. 

A  black  and  white  bird  flew  across  the  road ;  and  I 
asked  what  it  was,  to  be  told  it  was  a  "mag-pye." 
I  thought  this  would  delight  Bridget.  Soon  after,  in 
some  trees,  lo  !  great  wads  obscuring  the  light,  though 
all  leaves  fallen;  and  I  asked  what  it  was,  to  be 
told  a  "  mag's  nest."  —  "  And 
sure  it  has  a  very  large  nest  for 
so  small  a  bird,"  said  some , 
one  I  consulted  on  the  subject. 
The  men  are  at  work  in  their 
fields,  wholly,  so  far  as  I  saw, 
with  spades.  The  custom  is  to 
dig  over  the  fields  in  perfectly 
regular  ridges  from  four  to  eight 
feet  wide,  rounding  up  into  the 
middle.  I  had  seen  this  in  flat 
land  in  Belgium ;  but  here  it  is  everywhere,  and  they 
say  it  is  to  keep  the  water  from  standing,  —  a  sort  of 


202          NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

superficial  drainage.  But  I  do  not  see  why  they 
should  do  it,  as  they  do,  on  the  slopes  of  hills. 

I  say,  above,  "gentlemen's  houses."  We  passed 
the  gateway  of  two.  Perhaps  a  third,  in  the  edge  of 
Killishandra,  came  up  to  this  mark.  As  we  entered 
the  town,  a  rather  modern  Episcopal  church  showed 
itself;  the  solid,  substantial,  ugly,  and  not  uncom- 
fortable residence  of  Mr.  Archdeacon  Marsh,  I 
will  call  him  (of  whom  hereafter) ;  and  then,  run- 
ning right  over  a  hill,  a  compact  street,  wide  enough, 
of  one  or  two  story  houses,  all  touching  their  neigh- 
bors. Of  which  we  stopped  at  the  Imperial  Hotel, — 
a  small  two-storied  house,  with,  however,  a  consider- 
able building  for  stables,  &c.,  back.  There  I  made 
my  first  Irish  acquaintance  with  peat-fire ;  and  very 
warm  and  cheerful  it  is :  nor  do  I  dislike  the 
smoke,  though  it  must  be  confessed  that  you  perceive 
it  in  every  house. 

My  business  in  Killishandra  was  to  see  a  certain 
John  Foster  and  his  family.  I  knew  one  of  his 
sisters  in  America.  I. summoned  the  landlord  of  the 
Imperial  Hotel,  and  consulted  him.  Then  I  went  to 
the  post-office,  and  soon  found  there  were  so  many 
John  Fosters  as  to  make  an  embarras  des  richesses. 
But  my  John  Foster  was,  pretty  clearly,  a  man  of 
"  Arrish  Island,"  who  worked  for  Mr.  Behan,  and  had 
a  brother  Robert  in  Australia.  There  was  a  thick 
rain  by  this  time  ;  but  I  took  out  my  mackintosh  (not 
used  since  the  Rhine),  had  another  jaunting-car 
brought  round,  and  we  went  down  to  find  him. 


IRELAND.  203 

It  was  not  a  long  drive ;  and  the  driver,  after  a 
mile  and  a  half  perhaps,  pointed  out  five  or  six  men 
at  work  on  a  new  road,  one  of  whom  was  John 
Foster. 

But  not  my  John  Foster.  He  had  no  sisters  in 
America ;  but  had  a  daughter  Margaret  there,  who 
had  only  been  there  two  years.  He  expressed  re- 
gret that  she  was  not  living  with  me.  All  hands 
counselled,  heard,  inquired,  and  interrupted;  but, 
finally,  with  astonishing  unanimity,  agreed  that  it 
was  Hughey  Foster's  family  I  wanted,  from  which 
four  daughters  had  gone  to  America  about  ten  years 
ago.  They  pointed  out  Hughey's  old  house  (he  him- 
self and  wife  dead),  which  agreed ;  and  up  we  went. 
The  house  proved  to  be  larger  than  most  of  the  cot- 
tages, with  a  little  fenced  yard  between  it  and  the 
street.  A  little  child  called  the  mother;  and  it  proved 
that  these  residents  were  —  I  forget  what;  Tralees, 
perhaps,  who  had  taken  the  house  after  Hughey's 
misfortunes.  I  saw  the  man  and  his  wife,  and  gave 
the  child  sixpence ;  wrote  down  the  names  of  Ann 
and  Rose  and  Biddy,  Margaret's  sisters  ;  and  finding 
that  Mary,  another,  had  married  James  Markison, 
I  thought  this  was  probably  the  John  I  was  in  quest 
of;  and  started  for  him,  after  gathering  ivy  and  holly 
for  tokens. 

James  Markison's  was  two  miles  the  other  side  the 
town,  up  a  villainous  road.  Into  the  cabin  —  first  of 
his  brothers,  then  of  him  —  I  pitched  ;  and  great  was 


204         NINETY  DAYS'  WOUTH  OF  EUROPE. 

his  delight  and  his  wife's.  Frequent  outcries  of  "  O 
heavenly  Father  ! "  at  wonder  that  I  had  come,  and 
great  enthusiasm  at  my  accounts  of  "  Margaret : " 
when  the  whole  romance  was  dashed  by  their  asking 
for  Margaret's  children;  and  it  appeared  she  had 
been  married  these  four  years,  and  had  two  or  three. 
Of  this  there  was  no  doubt,  as  a  sister  had  been  home 
this  year.  I  had  a* little  warning  of  this  at  the  Tralee 
house,  when  the  good  woman  had  insisted  that  Mar- 
garet's hair  was  black.  This  was  a  comforting  result 
of  the  morning's  work.  It  was  now  two,  and  I  to 
leave  for  my  train  at  four.  I  was  no  nearer  my 
John  Foster  than  when  I  began ;  so  I  resolved  to 
sacrifice  this  train,  and  to  continue  the  investigations 
in  what  was  left  of  the  day  and  evening.  This  I  did, 
first,  on  the  great  principle  of  life  which  Napoleon 
expressed,  when  he  said,  "If  you  set  out  to  take 
Vienna,  take  Vienna ;  "  second,  on  that  principle  of 
travelling  which  I  commend  to  all  my  young  friends, 
that  it  is  better  to  see  one  place  thoroughly,  than  to 
half  see  two,  or  to  pass  through  three  without  seeing 
them  at  all.  Nay,  it  is  even  better  to  half  see  Rome 
than  to  eighth  see  Rome  and  Naples  and  Venice 
and  Milan. 

By  this  time  it  appeared  that  Killishandra,  instead 
of  being  a  village,  was  something  much  more  like 
a  Virginian  county.  It  is  called  a  parish,  and  this 
had  misled  me  :  but  "  parish "  in  Ireland  does  not 
now  mean  the  district  for  wThich  one  church  suffices ; 


IRELAND.  205 

if,  indeed,  it  ever  did.     It  is  more  like  a  large  Ame- 
rican "  township."     After  a  solemn  series  of  councils 
with  the  innkeeper,  the  postmaster,  the  doctor,  and 
the  English  archdeacon,  I  got  a  new  basis  of  opera- 
tions.    These  various  visits  and  conferences  showed 
me  some  Irish  interiors,  and  at  the  surgeon's  and  the 
clergyman's  I  met  the  cordial  reception  which  gentle- 
men give  a  stranger.     Since  that  day's  journeying  up 
and  down  this  quaint,  crowded  street,  —  crowded  so 
unnecessarily  in  the  midst  of  a  great  half-settled  farm- 
ing country,  —  the  details  of  Trollope's  novels  have 
come  out  for  me  with  singular  sharpness.     The  re- 
sult of  the  conferences  as  to  my  "  Holy  Quest "  was 
this,  —  that    in    the  neighborhood    of  Arvagh,    the 
other  principal  town  of  the  parish  of  Killishandra, 
were  two  more  John  Fosters,  one  of  whom  was  pro- 
bably  my  man.      I  could  take   one  on  my  way  to 
Arvagh,  which  was  only  eight  miles  across  the  coun- 
try.     I  had  seen,  meanwhile,  two   other   Margaret 
Fosters,  who  knew  nothing  of  my  Margaret  or   my 
John.       So  we  started,   with  a  fresh  horse    in    our 
jaunting-car,  and  "jaunted"  over  the  eight  miles.    It 
rained  all  the  time  :  but  I  enjoyed  all  the  ride  till  the 
twilight  failed  me,  about  the  time  I  came  to  my  first 
John ;  I  think  his  name  proved  to  be  Hugh.     I'm 
sure  that  he  knew  as  little  of  what  I  wanted  as  the 
most  un-Irish  Know-nothing.       Six  o'clock    in  the 
evening,  however,  found  me  at  the  Hotel  Imperial, 
Arvagh.     This  Hotel  Imparial  was  a  newly  opened 


206          NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

inn ;   very  like,  I  should  think,  the  "  Dunmore  Inn/' 
as  kept  by  the  Widow  Kelly.      Down-stairs  was  a 
great  rambling  country  store,  as  we  should  call  it ;  up- 
stairs, two  or  three  rooms,  as  well  provided  and  as  ill 
provided  as  a  new  country  tavern  would  be  in  a  back 
county  in    Pennsylvania.     Everybody  was  eager    to 
be  of  service.     The  peat-fire  burned  comfortably.     I 
was  very  soon  set  to  rights ;  and  some  one,  whom 
I  will  call  Jerry  Flaherty,  was  brought  me  from  a 
neighboring  tavern,  as  one  who  had  made  a  specialty 
through  his  life  of  the  study  of  John  Foster  and  his 
family.     On  cross-examination,  he  proved  to  be  well 
up  on  this  subject ;  and  so  eager  was  he  that  I  should 
not  lose  the  way,  that,  when  the  car  appeared  which 
was  to  take  me  over  the  "  bit  of  four  miles  "  which 
lay  between  the  inn  and  my  destination,  he  insisted 
on  accompanying  me  to   show  the    road.      All    my 
protests  and  threats  to  prevent  him  were   in  vain : 
and  I  finally  found,  that,  unless  I  let  him  get  into  the 
car  with  the  driver  and  myself,  we  should,  in  fact, 
never  get  there;    for  the  driver  knew  no   more    of 
the  road  than  I  did ;  while  my  volunteer  guide,  un- 
fortunately, was  not  in  a  condition  to  drive. 

The  road  was  very  blind  :  but,  if  it  had  had  eyes,  it 
could  not  have  seen  any  thing ;  for  the  night  was  as 
dark  as  the  heart  of  the  Mammoth  Cave.  How  we 
ever  came  to  John  Foster's  cabin  that  night,  I  cannot 
tell.  When  we  came  there,  it  proved  to  be  the  right 
place  ;  and  the  cordiality  of  its  humble  reception  is 


IRELAND.  207 

beyond  description.  I  have  no  more  right  to  put  in 
print  the  details  of  this  stone-mason's  family  life,  than 
I  should  those  of  palaces,  if  I  had  seen  them.  I  will 
say  that  I  believe  the  regret  was  perfectly  heartfelt 
which  was  expressed  there  and  in  other  similar  visits 
which  I  made  in  Ireland,  when  they  found  that  I 
could  not  spend  a  week  with  th^m  to  test  the  sincerity 
of  their  welcome.  The  mother  of  this  family  of  six 
or  seven  fine  children  offered  to  send  her  pretty 
daughter  of  fifteen  to  her  friends  in  America  by  my 
care,  if  I  would  bring  her  with  me.  Observe  that 
this  was  at  nine  in  the  evening,  and  the  girl  would 
have  to  be  "ready"  at  four  the  next  morning  for  the 
expedition. 

Occasionally,  but  very  seldom,  I  should  think,  an 
Irish  emigrant  had  returned  from  America  to  this 
neighborhood.  In  the  instances  of  which  I  heard, 
such  men  had  made  a  great  display  of  their  money, 
and  had  borne  themselves  quite  as  travelling  princes 
among  their  stay-at-home  friends.  I  think  I  observed 
everywhere  in  Ireland  a  corresponding  feeling  of 
humility  on  the  part  of  those  who  had  not  emigrated. 
To  me,  at  least,  perhaps  because  I  was  an  American, 
they  apologized  for  their  staying  there ;  explained 
how  they  meant  to  come ;  how  some  day  they  should 
come.  There  was  nothing  of  the  braggadocio  by 
which  the  Irishman  in  America  boasts  to  you  that  his 
own  country  is  the  finest  in  the  world. 

I  spent  two  or  three  hours  with  these  new-found 


208          NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  or  EUROPE. 

friends,  and  left  them  with  real  regret.  It  proved 
that  I  could  go  most  easily  to  Crossdony  to  the 
train,  without  returning  to  the  village  of  Killishandra. 
I  gave  directions,  therefore,  that  a  man  should  be 
sent  there  at  three  in  the  morning  for  my  St.  Goth- 
ard  walking-stick,  which  I  had  left  by  accident ;  that 
I  should  myself  be  cabled  at  five ;  and  so  retired  for 
the  night,  after  my  first  day  of  Ireland. 

DEC.  30,  1859. 

Anthony  Trollope  says  that  an  Irishman  dislikes 
to  do  any  thing  at  the  regular  time,  but  is  always  ex- 
travagantly on  hand  at  an  extravagant  or  unusual 
time.  Certain  it  is,  that  my  horseman  left  at  three, 
according  to  promise ;  that  I  breakfasted  at  five ;  found 
my  baggage  well  packed  on  my  jaunting-car  under  the 
stars  at  half-past  five  :  and  we  started  to  do  our  seven 
Irish  miles  in  an  hour  and  a  half. 

I  told  that  detail  above  about  the  St.  Gothard 
stick,  because  it  illustrates  so  well  a  good  many 
Irish  characteristics.  As  we  rattled  on  over  the 
frozen  road,  before  there  was  a  glimmer  of  daylight, 
we  heard  horses'  feet  approaching  us ;  and  it  proved 
that  my  horseman,  having  ridden  to  Killishandra  and 
obtained  my  traps  ;  having  ridden  thence  to  the  Cross- 
dony Station,  —  say,  fifteen  miles  in  all, — had  thought 
best,  Irish  fashion,  not  to  wait  there  for  me,  but  to 
take  his  chance  of  meeting  me  on  my  road  across  to 
the  station.  This  he  did,  after  he  had  ridden  in  all 


IRELAND.  209 

some  twenty  miles.  And,  so  far,  the  spontaneous 
Irish  system  certainly  worked  well.  "We  drew  up 
and  he,  and  I  asked  him  if  he  had  my  cane.  "Yes, 
sir,"  he  cried  exultingly,  dismounting  :  but  in  that 
instant  I  saw  something  fly  across  the  sky ;  and,  with- 
out the  slightest  pause,  he  closed  the  sentence  which 
had  begun  so  exultingly,  with  "And,  begarr,  I've 
brroken  it ! "  which  was  the  precise  fact.  In  his  reck- 
less dismounting  he  had  snapped  the  stick  in  two,  in 
such  manner  that  the  better  half  of  it  flew  into  parts 
unknown  (where  it  remains,  I  suppose,  unto  this  day). 
I  explained  to  him,  in  a  rapid  discourse,  that  this  in- 
cident, in  which,  after  twenty  miles'  hard  work,  he 
had  destroyed  the  object  of  the  whole,  illustrated 
very  precisely  the  Irish  character  and  Irish  history, 
from  the  days  of  Henry  the  First  down.  Giving  him 
a  shilling,  lest  he  should  forget  the  lesson,  I  proceed- 
ed, with  the  chamois-horn  handle  of  my  unfortunate 
cane,  to  the  station.  The  fragment  serves  me  as  a 
memorial  both  of  the  St.  Gothard  and  of  Killishan- 
dra ;  two  points  which,  perhaps,  appear  together  on 
no  other  mental  map  than  mine. 

Crossdony  and  Killishandra,  as  perhaps  I  should 
have  said,  are  in  County  Cavan,  one  of  the  southern 
counties  of  Ulster,  the  Protestant  province  of  Ireland. 
I  was  therefore,  in  this  region,  just  in  the  outer  edge 
of  the  interesting  religious  revival  in  Protestant  Ire- 
land ;  of  which,  however,  I  must  not  trust  myself  to 
speak  here. 

14 


210         NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

From  Crossdony  I  returned  on  my  route  of  yester- 
day as  far  as  Mullingar.  It  was  one  of  the  pretty 
contrasts  of  travel,  nowhere  so  strong  as  in  Ireland, 
that  I  should  meet  at  the  station,  and  in  my  compart- 
ment of  the  railway  train,  a  family  of  high-bred  gen- 
tlemen and  ladies  passing  from  one  Christmas  party 
to  another ;  for  even  the  English  contrast  between 
the  "  farm-laborer"  and  the  "  gentry"  is  not  so  strong 
as  the  Irish  contrast  between  such  Keltic  cotters  as  I 
had  been  visiting,  and  the  "  Saxon,"  who  has  his 
country  seat  close  by. 

Mullingar  is  a  great  central  station,  where  I  left 
the  Dublin  train  on  my  way  towards  County  Clare. 
County  Clare  is  one  of  the  counties  which  suffered 
most  in  the  famine.  It  is  north  of  the  estuary  of  the 
Shannon,  but  is  not  included  in  Connaught ;  being  the 
north-western  county  of  Munster.  My  route  was  by 
rail  to  Athlone,  thence  by  steamboat  down  the  Shan- 
non to  Killaloe.  Killaloe  gives  the  title  to  one  of 
the  Catholic  dioceses  of  Ireland,  consisting  of  fifty-two 
parishes. 

At  Mullingar  I  had  one  of  the  droll  reminders 
that  I  was  not  in  America.  I  had  lost  my  way  at 
the  junction  (as  at  junctions  one  does),  so  that  I  be- 
gan to  wonder  when  and  where  my  own  train  would 
appear ;  when  a  porter  met  me,  and  told  me  he  had 
been  in  search  of  me.  He  told  me  that  the  train  was 
waiting  until  I  should  be  found.  In  fact,  through 
France,  England,  and  Ireland,  as  far  as  I  saw,  the 


IRELAND.  211 

• 

first-class  passenger  is  so  much  of  a  nobleman,  that 
he  receives  a  good  many  of  the  privileges  of  a  per- 
son in  charge  of  affairs.  I  remember  stopping  the 
whole  of  an  express-train  in  France  until  I  could  fill 
my  water-cup,  for  a  child  in  the  car  with  me,  with  the 
water  he  wanted  to  drink.  This  attention  in  Ireland 
affected  me  the  more  from  my  sense  of  its  contrast 
with  the  institutions  of  my  own  beloved  country. 
Compare  this,  for  instance,  with  Springfield,  Massa- 
chusetts, where  there  is  no  indication  of  any  sort  to 
tell  the  passenger  whither  the  trains  are  going,  and 
no  person,  civil  or  uncivil,  to  inform  him.  That 
comparison,  however,  is  scarcely  fair ;  as  I  believe  all 
travellers  recognize  the  Springfield  Station  as  the 
worst  administered  in  the  world. 

A  short  ride  from  Mullingar  brought  us  to  Ath- 
lone  ;  a  fine  city,  at  the  outlet  of  Lough  Ree.  Here 
the  Shannon  is  large  enough  for  the  navigation  of 
small  steamboats ;  and  here  we  took  a  pretty  boat, 
the  "  Duchess  of  Argyle."  The  railroad  crosses  the 
Shannon  by  a  very  handsome  bridge. 

Here  was  an  illustration  of  that  horrid  division  of 
class,  which  is  the  weakness,  if  not  the  ruin,  of  Eng- 
land and  of  Ireland  as  well.  The  passengers  for  the 
boat  went  down  to  her  by  a  dirty  little  omnibus. 
We  were  most  of  us  men,  dressed  in  coarse,  heavy, 
winter  costume.  The  party  had  gathered  in  the 
carriage,  ready  to  start ;  when  the  cad  appeared, 
incensed,  at  the  door,  and,  addressing  two  of  our 


212          NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

number,  said,  "Get  out  of  this  'bus  !  This  'bus 
wasn't  built  for  third-class  passengers  to  ride  in." 
I  did  not  see  but  the  men  looked  as  decently  as  the 
rest  of  us  did ;  and,  in  fact,  they  were  not  excluded 
because  they  were  dirty  (for  they  were  not),  but  be- 
cause, in  the  prior  experience  of  their  lives  in  the 
railway  above,  they  had  ridden  in  a  third-class 
carriage.  They  had  done  with  that,  however,  and 
had  entered  another  vehicle  on  another  route  of  travel. 
We  had  all  of  us  given  up  all  our  railroad-tickets ; 
and  we  paid  a  separate  fare  for  this  omnibus  expedi- 
tion. However,  the  two  men  descended  ;  said, 
meekly,  they  meant  no  offence,  but  thought  all  the 
passengers  were  to  go  together ;  and,  while  we  rode 
in  the  grandeur  of  first  and  second  class,  they  walked 
with  their  packs  down  the  river-bank  to  the  steamer. 
The  consequence  was,  that  we  all  had  to  wait  for  them 
to  arrive ;  solacing  ourselves  as  we  could,  during  that 
half-mile  of  theirs,  by  thoughts  of  the  acceptable 
sacrifice  that  had  been  made  to  our  gentility. 

The  Shannon  flows  through  a  very  level  country ; 
and  indeed,  at  this  time,  was  in  many  places  over- 
flowing its  banks.  The  whole  country  was  as  green 
as  New  England  would  be  in  May.  In  that  region, 
there  was  no  great  token  of  agricultural  wealth ;  but 
everywhere  it  was  a  beautiful  country  to  look  upon. 
And  so,  after  a  charming  voyage,  we  disembarked  at 
night  at  Killaloe.  Here  I  left  the  boat  for  my  excur- 
sion into  County  Clare. 


IRELAND.  213 

DEC.  31. 

To-day  begins,  after  breakfast,  with,  one  of  those 
pleasant  jaunting-car  rides  of  about  twenty  miles,  to 
Tullogh ;  the  country  still  as  green  as  the  Emerald 
Isle  ought  to  be,  but  only  occasionally  the  pretty 
gentleman's  seat,  such  as  one.  saw  more  numerous  in 
the  East  and  North.  The  ruined  cabins  all  along  the 
road  showed  how  immense  the  drain  of  emigration  and 
the  loss  of  life  by  famine  had  been.  I  said  of  Lein- 
ster  and  Ulster,  that  there  was  wood  enough  to 
fringe  or  break  the  horizon ;  but  it  is  not  so  here. 
And  the  care  taken  about  wood  reminds  me  of  its 
value  among  the  Esquimaux,  or  with  the  Arctic 
explorers.  So  soon,  therefore,  as  a  cabin  is  deserted, 
the  doors,  the  windows,  the  roof,  and  any  internal 
partitions  it  may  have  had,  are  carefully  taken  away. 
All  that  is  left  is  a  square  ruin,  with  two  gable  points, 
which  may  crumble  into  decay  as  soon  as  the  ele- 
ments choose.  I  should  say  there  were  as  many  of 
thesQ  ruins,  at  least,  as  there  were  occupied  houses  on 
our  road.  But  they  tell  me  every  thing  is  thriving 
here  now ;  and  I  can  well  believe  it.  The  solidity 
of  the  roads  on  which  I  have  been  travelling,  all  over 
Ireland,  is  one  memorial  of  the  good  which  was 
educed  out  of  the  evil  of  the  famine.  The  British 
Government  met  its  responsibilities  nobly  in  that  ter- 
rible year.  They  always  say,  in  conversation  here, 
that  it  expended  ten  million  pounds  on  the  relief  of 
the  poor.  This  must  be  an  exaggeration :  but  the 


214         NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

sum  was  magnificent;  and,  on  the  whole,  the  expen- 
diture was  certainly  judicious.  They  tried  not  to 
give  it  in  alms,  but  in  wages.  They  therefore  re- 
built all  the  principal  roads  in  Ireland ;  and  the  first 
monument  of  the  famine,  therefore,  this  day,  is  a 
network  of  magnificent  highways,  rivalling  those  of 
England,  running  into  every  part  of  the  island.  I 
think  the  roads  were  very  bad  before.  Another 
result  of  the  famine  has  been  such  depopulation  as 
this  I  have  seen  in  Clare ;  leaving,  however,  quite 
people  enough  for  all  the  practical  purposes  of  an 
agricultural  county  ;  and  leaving  for  them,  of  course, 
higher  wages  and  better  fare.  I  have  learned  a 
good  deal  since  I  was  here  of  the  splendid  agricultu- 
ral arrangements  now  going  on  in  Connaught.  I  am 
very  sorry  that  I  cannot  go  and  see  them.  The 
largest  is  under  the  conduct  of  a  gentleman  from  the 
north  of  England,  —  the  head  of  one  of  those  great 
ship-building  firms,  which  maintain  a  reputation  now 
more  than  half  a  century  old.  He  has  the  passion 
for  putting  his  immense  wealth  into  the  form  of 
landed  property.  I  believe  this  passion  is  native  in 
the  heart  of  every  descendant  of  the  Adam  who  was 
placed  in  a  garden  where  he  was  made  and  bidden 
to  subdue  the  earth.  The  gentleman  of  whom  I 
speak,  instead  of  buying  an  estate  in  England  or 
Scotland,  has  bought  one,  vastly  larger  than  any  he 
could  have  found  there,  in  the  wilderness  of  Con- 
naught,  which  has  been  more  desolated  by  the 


IRELAND.  215 

famine  than  any  other  part  of  Ireland.  There,  in  a 
climate  milder  than  any  part  of  Great  Britain,  with 
great  advantages  resulting  from  the  neighborhood  of 
the  sea  and  the  native  fertility  of  the  soil,  he  is 
introducing  into  agriculture  the  systematic  habits  of 
commercial  and  manufacturing  life.  Without  seeing 
for  myself,  I  dare  not  put  on  paper  the  statements 
I  have  heard  respecting  the  magnitude  of  his  ope- 
rations ;  but  they  may  almost  be  called  those  of  a 
principality.  Such  is  one  only  of  the  advantages 
which  Ireland  has  obtained  from  the  famine. 

I  ought  not  say  this,  without  alluding  to  the  high 
statesmanship  by  which  Sir  Robert  Peel  and  his 
friends  rendered  it  possible  for  Irish  property  to  pass 
into  the  hands  of  those  capable  of  improving  it. 
This  was  only  made  possible,  on  any  considerable 
scale,  by  the  proceedings  under  the  Encumbered- 
Estates  Act. 

Tullough,  like  Killishandra  and  Arvagh,  and  every 
other  town  proper  that  I  saw  in  Ireland,  proved  to  be 
a  street  of  houses  and  shops  crowded  all  together ; 
though  wide  fields  surrounded  them  on  every  side, 
and  everywhere  there  seemed  room  enough  and  to 
spare.  It  was  in  the  delightful  excitement  of  "  quar- 
ter-day ;  "  the  court  being  in  attendance,  and  the  trials 
going  on.  The  judge  had  on  a  wig,  and  I  believe  he 
was  called  "  My  Lord;"  but,  excepting  this,  there 
was  nothing  to  distinguish  the  court -room  much 
from  what  a  county  court  would  have  been  with  us, 


216  NINETY    DAYS'  WORTH    OF    EUROPE. 

if  some  Irish  row  had  filled  it  full  with  gentry  of  that 
lineage. 

If,  indeed,  the  reader  will  recollect  that  nearly 
every  other  person  in  Boston  is  of  Irish  birth,  and 
that  a  tenth  part  of  the  people  of  Massachusetts  are, 
he  will  understand  why  I  say,  that,  all  through  this 
three-days'  reconnoissance  of  Ireland,  I  felt  very 
curiously  at  home. 

I  made  another  circle  of  friends  at  Tullough  by 
telling  who  I  was,  and  whom  I  left  in  America. 
They  offered  me  every  hospitality,  and  regretted  most 
heartily  that  I  could  not  stay  and  see  their  way  of 
life,  as  I  would  most  gladly  have  done.  But  it  was 
Saturday  afternoon,  and  the  steamship  was  to  leave 
Cork  on  Sunday  evening.  From  Tullough  to  Cork, 
as  the  bird  flies,  is  seventy  miles ;  and  I  saw  no  neces- 
sity for  travelling  on  Sunday. 

Here  was  a  pretty  piece  of  Irish  character.  The 
town  was  crowded  by  the  attendance  on  the  court. 
Every  horse  and  car  was  engaged  at  every  stable ; 
and  all  private  ones,  so  far  as  I  could  learn,  by 
those  who  were  to  leave  for  home  that  afternoon. 
I  told  my  friends,  however,  that  I  must  be  at  Lime- 
rick at  seven,  and  that  they  must  find  for  me 
conveyance.  So  they  did ;  though  it  was  convey- 
ance which  I  must  hire  ;  and  a  good  horse  and  car- 
riage it  proved  to  be.  But  no  advantage  was  taken, 
by  him  of  whom  I  hired  it,  of  my  absolute  necessity, 
and  of  what  we  both  knew  was  his  absolute  monopoly 
of  the  only  vehicle  I  could  have  hired. 


IRELAND.  217 

And  so,  at  twenty  minutes  after  three  o'clock,  I 
took  a  hurried  good-bye.  There  were  three  hours 
and  forty  minutes  to  do  twenty  English  miles :  time 
enough,  of  course,  if  all  worked  well ;  but  none  too 
much,  as  I  knew.  The  sun  sets  in  that  latitude 
about  ten  minutes  before  four,  on  the  last  day  of 
December  ;  and  dark  driving  is  slow  driving,  in  my 
experience.  So  I  hurried  up  my  ready  driver  to 
make  his  first  miles  his  best ;  and,  while  daylight 
served  us,  we  compassed  half  the  way  handsomely. 
But,  just  as  the  twilight  was  fading,  I  saw  on  my  side 
the  road  a  boulder  as  big  as  a  pumpkin,  just  in  line 
of  my  wheel.  I  called  to  the  driver  only  too  late. 
We  vainly  tried  to  mount  it :  over  went  the  jaunting- 
car,  down  went  the  horse  with  it,  off  went  the  boy- 
driver,  and  up  went  I. 

If  the  reader  will  examine  the  little  sketch  of  the 
jaunting-car  Vbove,  he  will  perhaps  understand,  what 
I  cannot  else  describe,  how  I  could  lie  up  there,  in 
my  seat  still,  my  legs  pointing  near  the  zenith,  with  no 
personal  power  of  descending.  I  could  and  did  give 
orders,  however.  I  bade  the  boy  hold  his  horse's 
head  down.  I  hailed  some  wagoners  we  had  just 
passed ;  and,  on  their  arrival,  they  lifted  me  from  my 
reversed  position.  My  poor  driver  was  blubbering* 
like  a  whipped  schoolboy.  The  hardest  matter  to 


*  Sidney,  who  studied  language  in  Ireland  perhaps,  uses  "  blubber," 
as  "to  weep  with  swelled  cheeks." 


218         NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

accomplish  in  that  absurd  wreck  was  the  first ;  viz., 
to  persuade  this  youngster  that  he  was  neither  dead 
nor  wounded,  and  that  no  material  harm  had  been 
done.  Then,  with  what  haste  we  might,  we  repaired 
damages,  which  were  considerable.  I  delivered  a 
lecture,  to  the  neighbors  who  assembled,  on  the  im- 
propriety of  rolling  stones  from  the  wall  into  the 
highway.  I  carried  the  errant  boulder  back  with  my 
own  hands ;  and,  in  utter  darkness,  we  started  again. 
But  we  had  lost  our  extra  half-hour ;  and  we 
could  not  make  the  time  in  the  darkness.  At  last, 
we  came  to  Limerick,  however,  with  scarce  ten 
minutes  left  before  the  train  should  leave.  In  such 
a  contingency,  all  the  disadvantages  of  the  Irish 
character  appear.  My  driver  had  never  been  in  the 
town  before ;  much  less  had  I.  Five  times  we 
stopped  to  inquire  where  the  railway  station  was.  It 
would  be  impossible  anywhere  but  in  Inland,  that  as 
often  the  persons  asked  did  not  know  where  was  the 
one  station  in  this  town  of  fifty  thousand  persons. 
How  the  memory  of  Dennis  Maher's  gospel,  alluded  to 
above,  smote  me  !  "  The  less  a  man  knows,  the  bet- 
ter," said  he.  Absolutely,  we  had  to  drive  up  into 
the  main  street  for  information.  We  found  it,  and 
whipped  round,  by  a  shocking  detour,  to  the  train. 
Ireland  for  ever !  It  has  not  started  on  time  !  I 
rush  forward,  and  an  obsequious  porter  takes  my  hat 
and  shawl.  "  Which  class,  sir  ?  "  —  "  First-class,"  said 
I,  and  sent  back  two  others  for  my  other  traps.  But, 


IRELAND.  219 

at  this  instant,  the  train  starts.  I  dare  not  slay  the 
guard  on  the  spot  as  I  remonstrate.  Off  it  goes  to 
Tipperary  with  the  porter,  with  my  abstracted  hat 
and  shawl,  but  without  me,  and  without  my  other 
luggage. 

How  Irish  the  whole  thing  has  been  from  begin- 
ning to  end,  I  included  ! 

I  availed  myself  of  my  forced  stay  at  Limerick, 
of  course,  to  ask  for  Limerick  gloves  (vide  Miss 
Edge  worth).  But  I  was  told,  alas  !  that  any  kind  of 
gloves  which  are  folded  up  into  a  walnut  for  a  cu- 
riosity, become,  by  such  folding,  Limerick  gloves. 
This  is  as  bad  as  my  experience  in  Cooperstown, 
where  Fennimore  Cooper  lived  and  died.  I  asked 
there  for  "  the  Pioneers,"  of  which  the  scene  is  laid 
there  ;  and  the  bookseller  had  never  heard  of  the 
book  !  The  fact  is,  that  Limerick  used  to  be  famous 
for  a  sort  of  ladies'  gloves,  which  were  called,  I  know 
not  why,  chicken-gloves  ;  but,  at  the  largest  clothing- 
shop  I  saw,  they  were,  as  I  say,  unknown.  What's 
fame  ? 

Missing  the  train,  I  had  to  content  myself  with 
riding  between  ten  and  one,  across  country  to  the 
"  Cork  Junction,"  in  what  we  should  call  a  cab.  It 
carried  the  mail  and  me.  We  hit  the  down-express  ; 
and  at  two  o'clock,  on  the  1st  of  January,  I  was  in 
the  Victoria  Hotel,  Cork ! 

Ireland  for  ever  !  The  porter,  eager  to  show  how 
full  the  inn  was,  was  for  marching  up  all  five  flights 


220         NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

of  stairs.     At  the  head  of  the  second  I  rebelled,  and 
said  quietly,  "  I  will  stop  here."     Meekly  my  Keltic 
friend   assented   to    the   Saxon's  declaration,  opened 
the  door  of  a  nice  room,  and  I  was  established. 
So  begins  1860. 

JAN.  1. 

Ireland  for  ever  !  I  was  breakfasting  late,  after 
the  experiences  of  the  night,  when  I  recollected  that 
the  hours  of  the  post-office  might  be  wayward  on 
Sunday ;  and  rang  at  once,  to  learn  that  it  closed  at 
ten.  Ten  o'clock  struck  at  that  instant.  Was  I  to 
lose,  by  that  chance,  all  my  last  letters  from  the 
dearest  of  my  English  friends  ?  Out  I  rushed,  of 
course,  into  the  rain,  asked  where  the  post-office 
was,  and  sought  it.  Three  people  severally,  at  dif- 
ferent corners,  bade  me  turn  to  the  left.  In  each 
instance  I  pointed  right,  by  way  of  inquiry ;  and 
that  proved  to  be  what  they  meant.  But  this  is  no 
Irish  peculiarity.  The  English  common  people  have 
also  inherited  it  from  the  Ninevites.*  A  party  of 
twelve  of  us  were  in  London  Tower  together. 
"  Turn  to  the  right,"  cried  the  guide  from  behind 
us.  Six  turned  to  the  right,  and  six  to  the  left. 
Of  the  first  six,  four  were  Americans.  When  I  told 
this  story  in  Kent,  they  declared  the  English  were 
from  Essex;  and  it  seems  there  is  a  story,  that, 
when  the  Essex  militia  drill,  their  Ninevite  inability 

*  Jonah  iv.  11. 


IRELAND.  221 

is  so  strongly  marked,  that  their  officers  bind  oat- 
straw  on  one  arm  of  the  soldiers,  and  wheat  on  the 
other.  Instead  of  "right-face,"  the  order  is  then 
given  for  "  oat-face  ;  "  and  "  wheat-wheel "  takes  the 
place  of  "  left- wheel."  By  this  time,  at  Cork,  I 
understood  the  language.  I  lost  not  a  moment ;  but 
the  office  was  shut. 

I  was  in  Ireland  :  so  I  rang  the  private  door-bell ; 
and,  when  the  door  opened,  I  advanced  into  the 
post-office.  Woe  to  me  if  I  had  done  that  in  Paris  ! 
Then  began  my  treaty.  "  It  was  impossible,"  they 
said,  "  that  I  should  have  my  letters."  It  was  im- 
possible, however,  for  me  to  leave  that  spot  without 
them.  "  But  the  postmaster  was  at  his  country-seat." 
But  I  was  in  the  post-office.  I  produced  a  shilling ; 
but  the  Irishman  is  not  an  Englishman.  It  ended 
by  the  clerk's  yielding  to  my  impetuous  appeal.  I 
think  they  liked  to  do  the  thing  because  there  was 
no  precedent.  They  refused  the  shilling,  —  Irish 
that,  —  and  gave  me  the  letter,  — -  Irish  too ;  for 
which  I  thanked  and  thank  them. 

So  was  it  that  the  poor  traveller,  who  had  had 
nobody  wish  him  a  happy  New  Year,  received  by  a 
precious  line  that  cordial  salutation. 

Ireland  for  ever  !  I  asked  for  and  found  the 
Unitarian  Church,  —  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  the 
Munster  Synod,  I  think  it  is.  Surely  I  must  be 
wrong  about  the  hour.  One  old  woman  and  I  are 
the  only  people  inside  !  No :  just  then  enters  a 


222         NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  OF  EUROPE. 

beadle,  and  shows  the  minister  up  stairs.  Oh  the 
refreshment  of  that  service,  as  of  Christmas  Day's  in 
Manchester !  Sixty  seconds  made  it  certain  that  I 
had  not  mistaken  the  place ;  and  then  the  luxury  of 
worshipping  God  in  my  own  language  and  my  own 
way,  instead  of  adapting  myself  to  Edward  Vlth's,  to 
John  Calvin's,  or  to  St.  Ambrose's  or  Hildebrand's ! 
It  proved,  as  soon  as  the  congregation  rose,  that  the 
greater  part  were  in  the  galleries,  where,  as  I  sat  at 
first,  I  could  not  see  them.  With  national  unpunc- 
tuality  also,  many  arrived  after  the  service  began. 

I  introduced  myself  to  Mr.  Whitelegge,  the  mini- 
ster ;  of  whom  I  may  say,  without  impropriety  per- 
haps, that  he  had  preached  one  of  the  best  sermons 
I  ever  heard.  The  weather  had  cleared ;  and  he 
kindly  showed  me  some  of  the  most  beautiful  points 
of  this  beautiful  city. 

And  so  ends  Ireland.  An  extra  mail-train  comes 
sweeping  in  at  the  station.  As  I  bid  the  porter 
good-bye  who  brings  my  luggage  from  the  hotel,  I 
tell  him  to  ask  for  me  if  he  ever  comes  to  Boston. 
"  And  I  will  go  with  you  now,  if  you  will,  sir."  And 
so  he  would,  as  he  stood ;  though  the  boat  for  Queens- 
town  was  to  leave  that  moment.  What  are  baggage, 
back  wages,  or  good-byes,  to  a  chance  for  America? 

Down  to  Queenstown,  through  the  pretty  passes  of 
Cork  Harbor.  Have  you  ever  seen  so  pretty  a  light- 
house as  that  of  Black  Rock  ?  There  is  a  picture  of 
it  where  this  chapter  begins.  Down  to  Queenstown, 


IRELAND.  223 

where  we  come  by  twilight.  But  the  day  has  been 
rough  ;  and  Queenstown  knows  nothing  of  the 
"  Europa." 

So  her  Majesty's  mails  are  transported  to  a  wretch- 
ed little  tug,  and  the  three  passengers  for  the  "  Euro- 
pa"  are  transported  there  also.  As  long  as  they  can 
walk  the  pier,  they  do.  As  long  as  they  can  sit  in 
the  cabin,  which  is  the  shape  of  an  irregular  trape- 
zium, whose  longest  side  measures  ten  feet  and  its 
shortest  three,  while  its  convex  side  is  made  by  the 
tug's  boiler  (atmosphere  accordingly),  they  sit  there, 
—  the  colonel,  the  doctor,  and  I.  How  well  we  knew 
each  other  after  a  fortnight !  At  length,  at  nine 
o'clock,  the  "  Europa's  "  rockets  are  seen  in  the  bay, 
and  (Ireland  for  ever ! )  our  crew  has  all  gone 
ashore. 

The  three  passengers  appear  on  deck.  To  them 
enter  the  mail  agent,  somewhat  profane.  To  him 
enter  a  stoker.  "  Where's  your  master  ? " —  "  Plaze, 
he's  just  stepped  ashore  to  get  a  cup  of  tay." 

Let  us  hope  it  was  tay.  Her  Majesty's  mails  had 
to  wait,  and  the  "  Lady  Europa's  "  passengers,  till  the 
tay  was  drunk  and  the  skipper  appeared.  One  and 
another  of  the  crew  straggled  in,  and,  under  instruc- 
tions from  this  author,  fired  the  return  rockets ;  and 
so  we  forged  down  the  bay  at  last  till  we  could  look 
up  on  the  huge  "Europa's"  deck  from  our  cockle-shell. 
Ireland  for  ever !  The  captain  of  the  tug  sends  all 
his  crew  into  his  small  boat  to  take  a  line  to  the 


224         NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH  or  EUROPE. 

"  Europa."  They  should  have  all  staid  on  board  ;  for, 
as  we  run  under  the  great  ship's  side,  we  need  them. 
However,  this  author  takes  the  helm ;  and  as  Capt. 
Leitch,  from  his  high  "Europa"  paddle-box,  gives 
orders,  answers,  "Port  it  is,  sir ! "  or  "  Starboard  it  is ! " 
as  directed.  The  skipper  of  the  tug,  relieved  from 
that  duty,  catches  the  "  Europa's  "  hawser  at  our  bow ; 
some  one,  I  know  not  who,  does  like  duty  at  our 
stern ;  and  then,  like  cats,  we  climb  up  the  high 
walls  of  oak  above  us. 

"  My  dear  captain,  how  are  you?  " 
"  My  dear  doctor,  how  are  you  ?  " 
"  Mr.  Hale,  here  are  letters  for  you." 
And  so,  before  her  Majesty's  mails  had  climbed  the 
bulwarks,  I  was  in  my  state-room,  and  half  asleep ; 
and  my  NINETY  DAYS'  WORTH   or  EUROPE  were 
over. 


"  EUROPA,"    HOMEWARD    BOUND. 


As  these  sheets  pass  through  the  press,  I  find  that  the  sleepy  name 
of  the  "  Baron  d'Osy  "  is  not  rightly  spelt;  nor  has  the  "  Madonna  da 
Foligno  "  fared  better. 


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